


Persistence of Memory

by Stayawhile



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-07
Updated: 2011-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-25 18:59:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 26,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stayawhile/pseuds/Stayawhile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of  "Chosen" and "Not Fade Away," Giles rebuilds the Council, and the Scoobies continue to fight evil worldwide.   Events bring old friends together in new and surprising ways as they face the threat posed by a long-lived sorceror.</p><p>Canon-consistent, post-series, originally posted on Livejournal several years ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Change of Scene

London is an ancient and venerable city, but a living one. Stones that were set in place long centuries ago are reflected in the cool, gleaming surfaces of their towering neighbors, built of glass and steel, stretching toward the gray English sky. By deliberate choice, the new office of the Council of Watchers was located in one of the latter. Brushed chrome trimmed the rows of rounded cubicles, which were covered in mauve fabric and wired for computers.   

A phone line buzzed in one of the private offices along the wall. Rupert Giles did his best to keep the exasperation out of his voice as he picked it up; it wasn’t Andrew’s fault that the new Council was pitifully understaffed and the phone had rung every five minutes all bloody day.   

“Mr. Giles, um, good news and bad news? Good news is—Willow on line 3! But on the bad news side, she sounds kind of upset.” Andrew’s eagerness to please didn’t keep him from being annoying, but it did keep him alive.   

“Put her through.”   

Willow’s wavering hello was ripe with tears, either recently shed or barely repressed, and his exhaustion fell away, replaced by a fierce protectiveness. He wished the Slayers and Scoobies could have left peril behind after Sunnydale, but after only a brief respite, the survivors had taken on new fronts in the ongoing battle. He was relieved by her initial reassurances that she and Kennedy were in no immediate physical or demonic danger.  

“Of course, I could certainly use your help here…. I’ll assign a Watcher to join Kennedy in Rio….yes, she should have some Council support there…..Don’t thank me. It will be….to be honest, I’ve missed you. I’ll have Andrew set up a flight for you and email the information. Do take care of yourself, Willow. Goodbye.”   

When Giles looked up, Andrew was watching him from the doorway. In pursuit of his dream of becoming a Watcher, he was decked out in a three piece tweed suit, complete with watch chain. If only he’d get a proper haircut, Giles thought, he’d almost look like an adult. “So, she’s coming back? I mean, not back, but here? To us?”  

“Yes. She and Kennedy have ended their relationship.”   

Andrew made a sad face. “Wow. Sad, but like, totally predictable. I mean, anyone could see that Kennedy was Willow’s rebound girl, and Kennedy just wanted to not be alone ‘cuz she figured she was probably going to die soon. I completely get it because I felt the same way, except nobody in the house wanted to not be alone with me.” He brightened. “But hey, we lived, and is Willow coming to stay? I mean, is she going to be part of the London team now?”  

“At least temporarily, I should think. She needs some time to recover before she makes any long-term decisions. We can provide a haven for her.” Giles looked back down at his interrupted paperwork. “Another task presents itself, as well. Kennedy should have a Watcher assigned to her. I don’t think it’s safe for her to handle the situation in Rio alone.” He sighed. “No doubt she’s emotionally vulnerable right now, too.”   

“Um, well…” Andrew was uncharacteristically diffident. “What about me?”  Giles looked up in surprise. Andrew did not meet his eyes, but went on, “I’ve been working on my languages, and one of them is Portuguese, and I wouldn’t say I’m totally fluent, but I’m getting there. Portuguese is actually one of my better ones, which is strange, but anyway, I think Kennedy might like a familiar face, being all alone in a foreign country.”   

The older man considered. Despite his irritating ways, Andrew was not unintelligent, and had matured considerably in the year since the Hellmouth’s collapse. He certainly had more field experience than many of the surviving senior Watchers.

“I’ll discuss it with Kennedy, and see if she’s amenable. If so, I’ll consider it.” Andrew’s grin was oddly rewarding. “Set up a flight for Willow, Rio to London, within the next few days if possible. And clear my schedule for her arrival; I’ll meet her plane myself.”   

“Right-ho, sir! I won’t let you down!” With a theatrical little bow, Andrew excused himself. Giles watched him through the glass panel next to the door. Was he actually skipping? Was it too early for Scotch? Yes, very much so, and there was work to be done. He returned to his work, a complete revision of the Watcher curriculum, based both on what he had learned in his Sunnydale years, and what could be done with the limited resources that had survived the destruction of the old headquarters. He could put Willow in charge of magical training, he arealized, and began to picture himself working with her. There was so much she could teach the new Watchers, both from her mystical power and her field experience.   

While he felt compassion for Willow’s evident pain, he found himself looking forward to her return.


	2. A Slayer's Instinct

Andrew had booked her a red-eye, with a stopover in Lisbon. Willow had hoped to sleep on the flight, but every time she closed her eyes, the same scene played out, an endless rerun of a movie she hadn’t wanted to see the first time.   

 _“Hey, K, I’m back! You here?” Willow called as she set down her suitcases and closed the door behind her. It was good to be home. Well, not home, exactly-this was the third apartment she and Kennedy had shared since they’d come to Brazil-but it had been a good six months since their last move. She could hear the other woman moving around in the bedroom._

 _Kennedy was packing. Packing? Drawers were open, clothes were scattered on the bed, and she was sitting cross-legged in the center of the piles, methodically sorting her underpants. She looked up, suprised. “Oh… Will.”_

 _Willow’s smile froze, then melted. “Not the enthusiastic welcome home I was hoping for.” She shifted a stack of tee-shirts to the top of their shared dresser, and sat down, putting her arms around Kennedy, who returned the hug, burying her face in Willow’s neck. “Okay, something’s up here. What’s wrong, and why all the packing? Did Giles call? Is there some mystical crisis we have to go deal with?”_

 _“No, nothing mystical.” Kennedy untangled herself and sat up straight, pulling in a deep breath like she was about to begin a workout or a sparring session. “It’s me. Willow, I…have to go.”_

 _“Go where?” The tension was building in Willow’s stomach. “Why, and why now, I just got back, and whatever happened to ‘Hi Willow, missed you, how was Bahia?’ ”_

 _Kennedy got up and stood on the other side of the bed, giving her that direct stare that so unnerved vamps in the moment before they became dust. “Hi Willow. I missed you. How was Bahia?”_

 _“Never mind that. Where are you going?” Willow thought she knew, and she wanted badly to be wrong. It wasn’t like she hadn’t felt the tension building between them lately, but nothing she did seemed to lessen it._

 _“I’m moving out. Father Miguel’s renting me a room. I’m sorry, but I can’t do this any more. One of us has to be honest, Willow.” Kennedy had unconsciously moved into fighting stance, her body tensed. Bad sign._

 _“Look, is this about Carnival? Because I know you were upset, so if we’re going to be honest, now might be a good time to tell me exactly what I did wrong.” Willow’s nervous system was on high alert, bells ringing and sirens going off. “I was dancing! People dance at Carnival!”_

 _Kennedy sat down heavily on the bed, as if deflating. “Willow, you were dancing with that guy, and you wanted him. I could tell. You’re not gay, you’re bi.”_

 _“But…I came home with you.” A small voice. “Doesn’t that count? Maybe I was a little turned on, okay, but I came home with you.”_

 _The response was tender. “I know you did. Will, you’re a good person. It’s not Carnival, it’s not even the bi thing, although you really need to deal with that, but, side issue. Look, don’t make this harder, please? I’m not blaming you….” She lifted an orange tank top, unfolded it, refolded it, smoothing its folds carefully as she spoke.  “Back when we got together, in Sunnydale? You had all this power, and it turned me on, and I went for it. I figured….I figured there were two possibilities, okay? Either some of us were going to die, or all of us were. And I wanted to be with you for whatever little bit of time we had left. I didn’t think we had a long term to worry about.”_

 _Willow began to speak, but Kennedy held up a hand, forestalling her. “I’m a slayer. Part of the slayer package is this intuition. Like in fights, knowing where to move without having to think about it. I follow my instincts. I knew then that you were still hung up on somebody else, that if we got together, I would be rebound girl. But at the time, I decided not to care. And now…”_

 _“Now you care.” Willow couldn’t look at her lover. She walked over to the screened doors that led to the balcony, and stared out over the rooftops, but the afternoon sunlight streaming in didn’t warm her._

 _Kennedy sighed. “Look, I know I’m a competitive bitch. I don’t know if it’s a slayer thing or it’s just me, but you know it’s true. You’re not in love with me like you were with her. I don’t know why. What we have….it’s been great. But it isn’t enough for me.”_

 _“I’m sorry. I’ll try harder. I’ll…” Willow’s words were barely a whisper, but Kennedy’s hearing was sharp. She stood, moving behind the smaller woman, stroking Willow’s shoulders, feeling the softness of her skin, and suddenly the steel was back in her voice. It didn’t match the tears that were starting to make their slow way down her cheeks._

 _“Don’t make this harder. Don’t argue with me when you know I’m right. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’ve been thinking and thinking and thinking, and you know that’s not my strong point. I’d rather just hit something, that’s what I know how to do. But there’s no bad guy to hit. There’s just you, and me, and I have to go.”_

 _Willow turned to her, this woman whose arms were a safe haven, whose every contour and muscle she knew, whose injuries she’d tended, watching the scars fade and disappear. “You have to go.” She repeated the words, wishing they could mean something different._

 _“I have to go.”_

Willow shifted, feeling the jet engines’ rumble, and tried again to position the small pillow in a way that didn’t make her neck ache. Maybe if she slept she could have a good, distracting Hellmouthy, nightmare. Something with vampires might be comforting. At least it would remind her of home.


	3. Starting Again

Although the Brazilian sun had tanned her skin and brightened her hair to the shade of a polished penny, Willow looked thin and tired to Giles. He held out his arms as she crossed the security barrier, and she hugged him tightly. “Welcome to England,” he said.  

“Hey, Giles. Thanks for coming out to meet me.” They said little more as they navigated the airport and collected her bags. His offer to buy her luncheon was met with a weary smile.  “Jet lagged now. Got to thank Andrew for the business class upgrade, but still, can we just go someplace where I can sleep for a couple of days?” Willow suddenly realized that she had made no plans beyond her flight, trusting Giles to take care of her once she reached London. “Um…I didn’t make a reservation anyplace, is there a hotel somewhere?” She sounded pathetic and childish to herself, but Giles was briskly reassuring.   

“Nonsense. I’ve a perfectly good guest room waiting for you.”    

 

Giles’ apartment was totally in character, Willow thought: dark wood, a deep red Persian carpet, bookshelves lining the walls. She slept for eighteen hours, and awakened the morning after her arrival to find a basket of muffins in the galley kitchen, and a note promising his return by teatime. She spent the intervening hours wandering through the rooms, pleased to find artifacts and furnishings she recalled from his place in Sunnydale. She had missed him when he packed up his belongings and returned to England, but at least these familiar things had survived the destruction. Her own possessions had all been lost. She spent a long time studying the framed photograph he kept on the mantelpiece: herself, Buffy, Xander, Tara, Anya and Giles in front of the Magic Box, under a banner proclaiming “Grand Opening!”   

Teatime, as it turned out, was late afternoon. Soon they were settled on the overstuffed sofa that faced the fireplace, dining on take-away Chinese food. Giles watched Willow carefully. He had noticed that the photo had been replaced in a slightly different spot, but while the young woman seemed sad and thoughtful as she described the breakup with her lover, she no longer looked as if she were about to fall apart.   

“The sad thing is,” Willow said, “Kennedy was right. I knew everything she said before she said it. But she was the one who was brave enough to actually say it. I was being all avoidy-girl, but she just faces things.”  

Giles smeared hot mustard on an egg roll. “Courage is a necessary aspect of being a Slayer. I’ve sometimes wondered if bravery is one of the Slayer powers they receive, or if having that power makes them courageous.”  

“Kind of a chicken and egg problem. I suppose being the thing that vampires are afraid of would make you feel braver.” Willow scooped more chicken with cashews onto her plate. “Suddenly I’m starving. I really haven’t felt like eating for a while, but this is great.” She stopped. “Um, you didn’t want any more of this, did you?”  

“No, no, I’m fine.” Giles smiled. It was a relief to see Willow’s personality reasserting itself, once the teary part of the conversation had ended. Now for a change of subject. “Have you considered what you’d do next?”  

“Not really. I didn’t think much past coming home. I mean, to London, home being a honking big crater in the ground these days. I just thought ‘Giles!’ and I came here and now….” She trailed off uncertainly.  

Giles outlined the role he’d been imagining for her over the past few days, helping him to develop the magical aspects of the new Watchers’ curriculum, training them to both detect and use magic. She jumped eagerly into a discussion of changes to be made, ways in which the Watchers’ Academy could help the new Slayers, and how the existence of multiple Slayers changed the odds in the battle between good and evil. Soon he was jotting notes on a soy-stained legal pad, while she had her laptop open to sketch out plans and outline next steps. He was reminded of their long-ago discussions in the Sunnydale High School library, when he had served her proper English tea and helped her with homework, and she had helped him research demons. A mere six or seven years ago, and yet continents, deaths and resurrections separated the woman beside him from that girl.


	4. A Working Relationship

There was much to be done, and Giles was grateful to have Willow beside him. Some of the surviving Watchers had contributed their private libraries to the rebuilding, but a large number of irreplaceable documents had been lost forever. Giles’ years in the field, his rank as Watcher to the longest-surviving Slayer in history, and his fierce will had made him the acknowledged head of the New Council, and he had rented several floors in a brand-new office tower as a signal that the Council’s traditional ways were also gone forever.   

The arrival of the witch who had empowered all the potential Slayers further consolidated his standing. Nonetheless, Willow found it awkward at first. She was respected, feared, and whispered about as she settled into a new office next to Giles. But as the weeks passed and her colleagues got to know her, their intimidation faded in the face of her informal style and sometimes confusing American idioms, which were quickly dubbed “Willowisms” by one of the younger Watchers. Even as their comfort level grew, their respect increased, as it quickly became clear that she was Rupert Giles’ second-in-command.  

She threw herself into the work of creating a new system for educating Watchers, new ways for Slayers and Watchers to work together. While she was rarely seen using magic at the Council offices, she met with the coven in Devon weekly, using astral projection to save travel time. In addition to helping her assess how magic could be better used against demonic activity, the coven was actively working to identify newly empowered Slayers worldwide, and providing Willow with more advanced training, at her request.  

The hours were long, but she didn’t mind. There was little time to miss Kennedy or dwell on the past. Giles’ workload shrank as she took on various projects, and the ongoing sensation of stress and exhaustion, which he had begun to consider normal, diminished as well.   

Their evenings were usually spent together. She mentioned looking for a place of her own, but Giles’ flat was both roomy and convenient to the Council offices. The third time she brought up apartment-hunting, he told her that if she was uncomfortable as his roommate she should certainly move, but he was content with the current arrangement. She insisted on paying half the rent and expenses from her salary, and he acquiesced.   

The truth was, Giles had hated living alone. Memories and regrets had crowded too close in the quiet of empty rooms, and he had found himself resorting to a drink or three more often than he thought healthy. Willow expected him to leave the office and eat dinner before midnight, and forced him to watch ridiculous American movies with her; in return, he was doing his best to educate her musical taste, introducing her to classic rock-and-roll. They fell into an easy companionship, talking mostly about work and their vision for future Slayers.   

Andrew had gone to Brazil. Surprisingly, both Kennedy and Willow had liked the idea. Privately, Giles was certain Kennedy simply didn’t want a Watcher who would try to boss her around, and that she was sure of her ability to dominate Andrew. Willow felt that only someone who had been through the last days of Sunnydale, the final battle and the Hellmouth’s closing, could relate to Kennedy’s odd mix of confidence and anxiety. She hoped Andrew would help her lover heal in ways that she hadn’t.

 

 _Tara stands in front of her, a sorrowful look on her face. She holds up a small sprig. Lethe’s bramble. “Sweetie, you don’t need this,” she says. Squinting, the way she always does when performing a difficult spell, she passes her other hand over the sprig and it transforms into a yellow crayon. Tara snaps the crayon in two and offers half of it to Willow, but when she reaches out for it, her hand is covered in black veins._

Willow awakens, reaching for Kennedy, who is not there. Right, London. Giles’ flat. No Kennedy.  

No need to pretend she does not remember who or what she was dreaming about. 


	5. Correspondence

_July 1, 2004_

 _Dear Mr. Giles,  
My father, Angel, asked me to send you the enclosed letter, if I hadn’t heard from him by now. I haven’t, which means he’s dead. For good this time.  If you see Willow, tell her I said hello, and thanks again.  _

 _Sincerely,_

 _Connor Reilly_

Giles turned the letter over in his hands, looking at it but past it, remembering a phone call a few months back.   

 _“Are you still at Wolfram & Hart?” His tone had been curt.  _

 _“Yeah, I'm still at Wolfram & Hart. What does that have to do with anything?” Angel had sounded angry and desperate. Giles hadn’t much cared.  
    
“I am not sending Willow into that pit of vipers. Until you can provide a plausible answer as to why they placed you in charge of their Los Angeles branch, I cannot see my way to trusting you.”   _

 _“Yeah. I understand.”_

Giles had begun to say something about being sorry, but was cut off by a crashing sound. He guessed that the phone had been hung up with extreme prejudice. Not that it mattered, since his apology had been less than sincere. He’d been forced to work with Angel, but that little incident of torture in their past made it difficult for him. Soul or no soul, Angel was dangerous. He’d had angry words with Willow before she left for Los Angeles to re-ensoul Angelus, and while she’d been successful, he had hated to see her take such a risk, especially when things were so dire in Sunnydale. Not again, he swore.   

And now Angel was dust. He’d heard about Connor and his inexplicable parentage from Willow, but where had the name Reilly come from? Not that it mattered. There was a phone number scrawled under the signature, like an afterthought. He pulled a second, sealed letter from the manila envelope. “Rupert Giles” was written on the outside, in a graceful, old-fashioned script. He slit it carefully open, and spread the single page on his desk.    

 _May 19, 2004_

 _Dear Giles,  
    
I know you neither like nor trust me, but if you’re reading this, I’m beyond caring. I just wanted you to know the truth about our takeover of Wolfram & Hart. I made a deal to save my son. Connor had been mentally destroyed by what the Powers put him through last year; he was about to kill himself and Cordelia along with a number of innocent people when I was offered a deal. Connor was given a false set of memories that included a happy childhood and a family; his existence was erased from the memories of everyone who knew him. I got the L.A. branch of Wolfram & Hart. I knew they were trying to manipulate us, co-opt me and turn me evil again, or at least prevent me from doing good, but my choices were limited. I had failed my son once and I couldn’t do it again. Just another sin to add to my long list. I’ve tried to do some good here, but I’ve reached the end of the line.  _

 _Fred Burkle, by the way, is gone. I was trying to save her when I called you a few months ago and asked for Willow’s help. One of the Old Ones, Illyria, devoured her and took her body in order to be reborn. She’s a wild card. We think she’ll fight with us, but can’t be sure. If any of us survives this, it’ll be her. Cordelia Chase is dead too. She was in a mystical coma for some time, and never recovered._

 _I’m asking you to be the one to tell Buffy. It will be easier for her to hear it from you. Also, please tell Faith and Willow, and thank them again for all their help last year. Without them, a number of battles would never have been fought, including the one we’re facing now._

 _If all goes well, the Circle of the Black Thorn will be destroyed tonight. I don’t know if the Watchers’ Council has information on the Black Thorn, but they’re the top echelon in this dimension, doing the work of the Senior Partners of Wolfram & Hart. They’ve been working to bring about the apocalypse, but we’re going to prevent it if we can. We being myself, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, Charles Gunn, and Spike.   _

 _I do not expect any of us to survive._

 _I’m sure Andrew told you that Spike is back, but I don’t know if Buffy knows. Please tell her for me that he died a champion. Again._

 _Angel  
_


	6. Earned the Right

“Hold my calls, Lydia.” Giles closed the door behind Willow. As she sat, he took in a deep breath and let it out, as if readying himself for a sparring session.  

“So, what’s the what, Giles?” He unlocked a desk drawer, removing an envelope, but did not hand it to her.  

“Remember the earthquake in Los Angeles last month? Very localized, took down the offices of Wolfram & Hart but did little other damage?” he began.  

“Yeah, we figured there was more to it than the San Andreas acting up. Did you get some new information? Hand it over.” Willow reached out, her eyes eager for new knowledge, and he reluctantly handed her the letter.   

When Willow finished reading and placed the letter on his desk, Giles was prepared for grief, or shock, but not for the pure fury in her eyes.   

“Angel asked for my help. For Fred.” Her tone was diamond-hard. “When was this?” 

“Um….in March. You were in the Himalayas, uh, astrally speaking, ” Giles replied.  

“And when were you planning on telling me?” Her volume rose steadily. “They needed my help and you didn’t even bother to inform me? You just turned them down. Fred needed me and you didn’t even TELL ME?”   

Even as he took off his glasses and reached for a pocket handkerchief, he knew it was a nervous habit, a pathetic delaying tactic and completely unnecessary. He polished them anyway, as he tried to find an explanation for a decision that had seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. “We had no idea what they were doing at Wolfram & Hart at the time, and we had no reason to trust them. It could easily have been a trap, and I wasn’t about to send you walking right into it!” He replaced his glasses, but was only able to meet her eyes for a very brief moment. At least they were still green, he noted with relief.  

“So you decided, all on your own, that I shouldn’t take the risk. Damn it, Giles! I am an adult. I know I was sixteen when you met me, but, newsflash, that was a long time ago. I don’t need you to protect me. I don’t want you to protect me. Maybe I could have helped her….” She was beginning to cry.   
“But I never even got to try.”   

She put her head down on her arms, and wept silently, her shoulders shaking. He wanted to go to her, put his arms around her, comfort her, but he knew that he had no right to touch her. Finally she turned a tear-stained face to him.   

“First, give me that handkerchief.” He handed it to her silently, and waited while she wiped her eyes and blew her nose. She held it out and he wordlessly took it back. “Second. If I am going to be part of this Council, you have to treat me as an equal. I’m not a child. I have a great deal of power, and I’ve learned to control it, which right now is a very good thing for you. If you ever do something like that again, I am so out of here. I’ll take your advice, but I make the decisions about what I do and what risks I take.” Willow stood. “I’ve earned that right.”  

She left his office, and he watched her go, a damp handkerchief crumpled in his palm. What the hell was he doing, he wondered, thinking he could lead this Council, could play any kind of role in the battle against evil. He’d screwed up yet again, another failure that had left him standing amid the bodies of those who had trusted him. Angel and Spike and Gunn and Cordelia, all dead. All lost. And Fred; he’d spoken to her on the phone. A soft Texas accent, a young voice that always sounded on the verge of a giggle.  

And Wesley Wyndam-Price. Oh God, Wesley. Another Watcher lost. Like Giles, he’d been forced out by the Council, but like Giles, he’d been a Watcher always, knowing too much to stay out of the fight. He’d been so young, so painfully, pompously young when hefirst came to Sunnydale…but he’d been a seasoned fighter by the end.  

The end. Now he was dead, and a strange, unfamilar sound came from Giles’ throat, which of course couldn’t be sobbing, because middle-aged Englishmen didn’t weep in their offices an hour before teatime.


	7. Frog Fear

Giles entered the flat warily, carrying two large bags of Chinese food as a peace offering. Willow was sitting on the sofa, a glass of wine in her hand. She turned to him, expressionless. “Good, you brought dinner.” She remained in her place as Giles brought dishes, chopsticks, a second wineglass.

After they had filled their plates with appetizers, he broke the silence.  “Willow, I apologize…”  

“Don’t.” She cut him off. “You probably thought you were doing the right thing, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that done is done. Trying to change the past doesn’t work. If anyone knows that, I do.” She smiled wanly. “The future, though…in the future, you’re not going to do that to me.”  

“No.” He looked down. “I will not.”  

“In that case, we’re good, and we probably ought to talk about the other stuff in the letter. I got a little overly focused back there, I know. Willow-ego rampage, freaking over the one sentence that mentioned me. Did you bring it?” Giles retrieved the letter from his briefcase and handed it to her.  

“It seems to me,” he began, “that I’ve read something about this Black Thorn. We must do some thorough research, and determine whether Angel actually succeeded in eliminating them. And whether they all did perish. I have contacts in L.A. that should be able to help.”  

“Well, you’ve got to admit things have been pretty quiet on the demony front lately. You were saying that just the other day. Could be Angel’s the man to thank for that, ” Willow mused. “I never got what Buffy saw in him. I mean, not bad looking and all, but it really would have been easier for us all if she’d…” she stopped, remembering a murder Buffy had not prevented. Jenny Calendar, long gone and usually forgotten, at least by Willow.  

“Yes, well, as you say, done is done.” He chewed thoughtfully on a mouthful of spicy beef. “But speaking of Buffy, we shall have to tell her.”  

“Last request and all. Dawn too. And who’d have thunk Spike would get two heroic deaths? Just like Buffy. Pass the spring rolls?” Giles handed them over, and she took a bite. “The other thing that worries me is this memory spell. I remember meeting Connor now, and telling you about him. I don’t remember not remembering him, but how would I know?” She shook her head and went on, “I need to look into that, figure out what kind of spell they used. Must have had a huge amount of power behind it, to create a whole lifetime’s worth of fake memories.”   

“Not to mention erasing the real ones, ”Giles said. That holds real danger; I’ve heard of cases where such mental tampering caused permanent damage.” Willow stilled, then carefully placed her plate on the coffee table. Oh, dear, thought Giles. I hadn’t meant to remind her. For a moment, he saw ghosts in the gathering dusk. Tara. Anya. Jenny.   

She seemed to be thinking the same thing as she looked up at him from under a shining fall of hair. “Giles, I can’t do this. How can I do this? I’ve made so many mistakes. I tried to fix things and wound up destroying them, and now I’m trying to…what? How do I know I won’t screw it all up again? Go all veiny and scary with the power?”   

He sighed. “You don’t. Neither do I. But there are things that need be done, and we know how to do them. And we know what can happen if they’re left undone. ” He reached past her to switch on the lamp, casting her face into shadow, and left his arm resting on the sofa back behind her shoulders. “As for your backsliding, I’m comforted by the fact that you didn’t toss me through a window today, despite provocation.”  

Willow smiled. “Could have turned you into a turkey.”  

Giles smiled in response. “Not a frog?”  

She made a face. “I have frog fear. Turkeys are good though. They’re kind of silly, and not too bright, and tasty.”  

“Silly and not too bright. Well, I suppose that’s just, if less than flattering.” He gave her an evil grin. “Ribbit.”  

“Nooo!” She hid her face in a pillow. “No frog noises!”   

“Ribbit. Ribbit. Ribbit.” He croaked gleefully. They dissolved into a full-fledged gigglefit, and while he knew it was partly hysteria, tension being released, he also knew he would make frog noises all night if he could just hear her laugh in response.


	8. Where the Guilt Train Stops

Rudy checked the address on the flyer, then resolutely knocked on the door. He hoped this guy was for real. It wasn’t one of London’s tonier neighborhoods, and the building didn’t exactly inspire confidence, but living with what he’d seen and done just wasn’t an option any more. This was the last resort before he pulled the gun out of that locked box in the basement and erased himself along with the memories.  

Dr. Gheren, a pale man with a long thin face, listened politely as Rudy stammered out his story, crumpling the advertisement between his large hands.   “I see.” He nodded. “You seem to be a very viable candidate for our treatment. I must warn you that this therapy is new and somewhat unconventional, and thus not covered by the National Health Service. However, I do feel we can help you eliminate the memories that are so troubling to you.” He tapped his slender fingers on the desk.   

“Thanks, doc. I…..I can’t sleep, I have nightmares, I can’t focus at work…my wife said I had to get some kind of help, and she’s right. If I could just forget that whole….” Rudy’s body shook just slightly, his usually ironclad self-control slipping. That was what he hated the most.   

“Yes, of course. I understand the difficulty completely. If you’ll have a seat in the next room and remove your jacket, I can give you an initial treatment today.” Dr. Gheren smiled, showing small, slightly pointed teeth. Rudy stood, his posture betraying his military background.  

“You can? That’ll be great.” Within minutes he was seated in a hard backed chair, tense with anticipation and the hope of relief.   

“Close your eyes,” said Dr. Gheren’s voice behind him. Rudy felt cool fingers against his temple, but didn’t see the bluish-green glow that surrounded his head for a moment, reflected in the doctor’s eyes.     

 

This time Willow was the one waiting at the airport. She had wanted to go to Rome with him, but Giles insisted that one of them needed to remain at the Council offices. “Besides,” he had said, “Angel asked me to be the one to tell her. This is my responsibility.” So she paced until she saw his figure moving toward her through the crowd, overnight bag over one shoulder, head down. He looked tired, she thought.  

They kept conversation to a minimum until they were back at the flat. She had laid out tea things, but left the actual brewing for Giles. There was a ritual quality to the way he made it, and she thought the familiar routine of measuring and pouring seemed to calm him as much as the tea itself. They settled on the sofa, where they took most meals, as the small table was usually covered with books and her laptop.   

“How’d she take it?” Willow sipped, regarding him sympathetically.  

“Well enough, I suppose.” He set down his cup carefully on the saucer, ran a hand through his hair. “She knew that Spike was back—Andrew managed to keep the secret for about a month, I gathered, which is longer than I would have expected. She was hurt that he hadn’t gotten in touch, hadn’t wanted her to know. She figured she’d get in touch with him eventually, but she wasn’t ready yet.” He picked up a biscuit and took a bite, his eyes distant. “She was proud….of both of them. ‘My vampires,’ she called them.”  

“Poor Buff.”   

“I’m glad she seems to be building a new life in Rome. She has been through so much and lost so much…” Giles finished his biscuit. “It was my responsibility to protect her, and I never could.”  

“Okay buster, the guilt train stops here.” Willow decided sympathetic was not the way to go. Not anymore. “Your stop, and you can leave your baggage in the baggage car, because… because metaphors, so not my thing, but hey, Buffy’s alive, right? Like, years past the standard Slayer expiration date. Frank in Records was telling me she’s outlived every other Slayer by two whole years now! And that’s not even including the months when she was not so alive, but hey! Doesn’t that make you the most successful Watcher ever in history? Come on, make with the happy for once, will you?”  

He blinked a few times, then gave her a tired smile. “You do have a point, I suppose.”  

“Darn tootin!” she replied. “Whatever that means….why ‘tootin?’ Where does that come from? Never mind, tangent. Buffy’s going to be okay.”  

“It could be your train metaphor making a reappearance, but better not to speculate. Yes, I do think Buffy will be all right. She has Dawn with her, and she’s seeing someone, although she told me it’s not at all serious. I think it helped her to know that they died in a good cause.”


	9. An Interview

The girl is disheveled, her blonde hair a mess. She looks as if she’s been in a fight. Her eyes are sad and disbelieving as she reaches out to take his hand. She is saying something he cannot hear, her words lost in the roar of the flames that consume him.  

Bill awakens, reaches for the glass of water on his nightstand and gulps it down. Bloody stupid recurring nightmare. He lies down, concentrates on breathing evenly so he can get back to sleep. He’d prefer to be well rested for the job interview.   

 

“Mr. Giles, your three o’clock is here. Shall I send him in?”  Giles repressed a sigh. “Yes, thank you, Lydia, please do.”  

Ironically, the hardest hit of the Council’s departments had been the safe desk jobs at headquarters, once reserved for those too old or otherwise unsuited to the risks of field work. The explosion had destroyed not only a building and numerous lives, but centuries of painstaking translation and linguistic work, crucial to the interpretation of ancient documents and prophecies. Although Giles had pulled every string available to him to get copies of original documents from museums and collections across the world, many were in languages and scripts no one on his current staff could decipher. He had put out a carefully worded call for linguists in a variety of academic journals, and had been interviewing candidates for weeks. Willow usually stepped in on some pretext, to perform a rapid but highly focused aura reading on each applicant, looking for signs of dark magic or deceit. The process was time consuming and often tedious, but over the past few months, Giles and Willow had decided that staffing up the Translation Section was a top priority.   

A slender young man in gray flannel trousers and a blue blazer entered the office, holding out a hand for him to shake. Giles stopped halfway through the process of rising from his chair and stared, utterly shocked.   

“Spike?” The man’s got as many lives as a bloody cat, Giles thought irrelevantly. But the familiar face showed no recognition, only confusion.   

“I’m sorry? My name’s Givenson, Bill Givenson. I’m supposed to be interviewing with Rupert Giles. Am I in the right office?” As Giles’ common sense reasserted itself, he finished standing and offered the expected handshake.   

“Yes, I’m Rupert Giles. You have a strong resemblance to someone…I wasn’t expecting to see. Do sit down.” It really was uncanny, he thought, looking the man over. Those vivid blue eyes and the cheekbones were remarkably similar, but the hair was longer and darker, curling over his ears, and the warmth of his hand and slight tan on his face marked Bill Givenson as clearly human. Giles took a resumé from the pile on his desk and studied it for a moment as he regained his composure. “I see you have a strong background in languages, both ancient and modern…and quite a few nonhuman tongues as well. Tell me about that.”  

“My grandfather, Walter Givenson, was a linguist, and I lived with him for several years as a child. My parents were in the diplomatic service, and they couldn’t always take me with them on their overseas postings. So my grandfather started me on Latin and Greek when I was fairly young, and I suppose I had an aptitude.” The voice, Giles thought, was much the same, but the accent was pure Oxbridge. “I grew up partly with him, partly overseas with my parents, then read classics at Balliol. My grandfather died while I was at Oxford, and when my grandmother passed away six years ago, I inherited his papers. That’s what got me interested in demonic languages.” Bill shifted in the chair and leaned forward, intent. “I also learned about the Watcher’s Council from his journals; he was a researcher and translator for the Council from 1945 to 1977. My work in nonhuman linguistics is based on his writings and his library. When I saw your advertisment, I knew I belonged at the Council. I’d been applying for university posts, but I’m not cut out for academia, and what you’re doing here is important.”  

“Who did you lose?” Giles asked quietly. He had learned that when someone was this intense about the battle, it was usually personal. And he needed to know the story, hear it told, to know if it was too much so. Passion is powerful, he thought, but without a leveling dose of detatchment, it can be deadly.     
Bill sat back in his chair with a sigh. “My father. In Hong Kong, when I was sixteen. My mother and I thought it was just, just an ordinary street crime, a robbery gone wrong, and that was horrible enough. But I found out from my grandfather’s papers that it was a vampire attack.” His face was tight with remembered pain. “My grandfather came out to Hong Kong, and helped us pack up to come home. As it happens, he was also investigating what happened to my father. ” Leaning back in the chair, he sighed heavily. “My father had been turned, and my grandfather had to stake his own son. So yes, this is important to me. Does that matter? I have skills you can use.”  

“Mr. Givenson, I do think we can use your language skills, and your commitment is indisputable. Your martial arts training is also impressive. Tell me, would it be possible to contribute your grandfather’s papers to the Council library? We are in the process of rebuilding, and any information he recorded will be useful to us.” They moved on to a discussion of the Translation Section, and Bill’s fluency in various languages, living, dead and demonic.   

There was a knock, followed by Willow’s tentative voice. “May I come in?” The door opened a crack. “Lydia said you were doing an interview, and since I have to leave for the rest of the day…” Bill’s back was to the door, so he missed the widening of Willow’s eyes, the way her hand tightened on the door frame.  

“Of course, Willow,” said Giles. His eyes held a warning, and she picked it up: reveal nothing. “I’d like you to meet Bill Givenson; Bill, this is Willow Rosenberg, who handles most of the magical issues we deal with here.” Bill rose, turned to her and shook her hand with a wide smile, which tightened slightly at her expression.  

“You knew him too, then?” he asked. Willow couldn’t find words to respond, but he went on politely. “Apparently I have a doppelganger out there.” He paused. “I hope that’s not literally true.”

Willow shook her head to stop herself from staring.   

“Um, nice to meet you. Giles, can I see you for a minute? “ Giles excused himself and joined Willow in the hallway.

She was trembling, he noticed.  “I know; it ‘s an extraordinary resemblance. Rather disturbing, really,” he said.  

She looked up at him, still pale. “No, Giles, that’s not a resemblance. That is Spike.”


	10. Auras Don't Lie

Giles had seen far too much to let the word “impossible” cross his lips, so he accepted Willow’s absolute conviction that Bill Givenson was Spike, at least as a working hypothesis. “Auras don’t lie, Giles,” she told him, her eyes glowing with excitement, “and besides, he’s got the exact same scar over his eyebrow! Coincidence? I don’t think so!” Experience made them both suspect that Spike’s return in human form was just the first piece of a larger puzzle.  

After some discussion, they decided to hire Bill Givenson to start in the Translation Section. He was well qualified, and wanted to train for full Watcher status and eventual assignment to a Slayer. Bringing him into the Council would secure his loyalty and keep him nearby while they investigated the Spike question. It also made a good excuse to submit him to a battery of tests, medical and mystical. A researcher was assigned to verify every aspect of his background, from his birth certificate to his father’s foreign service record; another, to painstakingly review the papers and journals of his grandfather, Walter Givenson. In the meantime, Bill was asked to design and teach an initial physical training course for staffers who were interested in becoming Watchers. This would make use of his black belt in aikido as well as keep him busy, and away from confidential materials, during their investigation.  

Willow and Giles, meanwhile, began spending evenings poring over books and yellowing papers, looking for any information on how a vampire might be reincarnated as human, and for spells that could create such a seamless false identity, complete with false memories. One night, after meeting an old colleague at the British Museum, Giles returned to the flat to find Willow at the small round table that was never used for meals. She was nodding over a fifteenth-century grimoire until his gentle hand on her shoulder brought her back to awareness.   

“Whoa, weirdness!” She rubbed her eyes and ran her hands through her hair. “For a minute I thought I was back in high school. I guess I was dreaming. You were going to give me a ride home in that ugly old car of yours.” She stretched her arms over her head, yawning.   

“My Citroen was not ugly,” Giles said in his most pompous tone, the one he had used to keep Andrew in his place. “Although I will admit it was old.” He smiled, remembering the times he’d driven Willow home from late-night research sessions. Her parents never seemed to worry about what time she got home, which he’d found both convenient and disturbing. “It looks as if you’re ready to stop for the evening.”   

“Well, let’s go over what we know and what we don’t know,” she said. “Did the medical reports come back today?” Giles reached into his briefcase and handed her a thick folder, then pulled up a chair beside her.   
“Yes, I reviewed them this afternoon. As best we can determine, William Givenson is 100% human. The scar on his eyebrow is from a rugby game, when he was fourteen; he’s been vaccinated against polio; and he is remarkably physically fit. Nothing outside of normal parameters.”    
“Except his aura. The psychics and mystics didn’t find anything unusual either. No traces of a glamour or a transformation spell of any kind. But I know it’s him. I recognize his aura. They’re like fingerprints, and his is totally Spike.” Willow sighed. “We’re dealing with some major mojo here.”  

“The best information I can get from L.A. is that Spike, Angel, and Charles Gunn were killed in the battle that took down the Wolfram & Hart headquarters.” Giles pulled a series of photographs from an envelope; they showed a pile of rubble, punctuated by a few protruding beams left from the building’s skeleton. “These arrived today. The media has attributed it to a very localized earthquake, which caused a fire.”  

Willow leafed through the photos. “Hard to picture anyone getting out of that alive. Or, you know, undead but standing. Still, is there any real proof?”  

“There is a demon named Hathpetsuk who claims to have dusted Angel himself, and several others report witnessing the beheading of Spike. The demon underworld in Los Angeles is in utter disarray, in the middle of an ongoing power struggle. Fortunately, there are many demons who are more than willing to sell information to anyone with money.” He sighed. “We have identified the body of Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. He was found in the home of a very powerful sorceror named Vail, who was also dead. I suspect if any of them had survived, we, or Connor, would have heard by now.”  

“So, someone or something extremely powerful has brought Spike back for reasons unknown, complete with a fully verifiable fake life. Every bit of his story checks out. So, did they plug his soul into someone who already existed, or did they build our boy William from scratch?” Willow yawned. “I wonder if the soul had something to do with it. Angel had one too, maybe he’ll show up looking for a job next.”  

“Lord, I hope not.” Giles stood up, placing a gently hand on Willow’s shoulder as she slumped over the file of pictures. “In any case, you’re exhausted. I should get you into bed.” Giles blushed, suddenly aware of his foolish and unintended double entendre. He hoped she hadn’t noticed, but before he could turn away from her, she placed her hand on top of his, and stood, pushing back her chair. She was very close, so close he could smell the faint herbal scent that clung to her soft grey sweater, and he drew in a sharp breath.  

“Yes, you should.” She placed a soft but very definite kiss on his lips, and leaned into him, her head on his shoulder, her body against his.   

“Willow, are you…” Words, he groped after words and there were none left, only the fact that she had kissed him and he needed desperately to know what it meant.   

“Yes, I am. And yes, you are, and yes, I’ve known for a while now.” Willow’s smile was mischievous as she lifted her eyes to his. “Auras don’t lie, Rupert Giles.” She nestled closer. “And neither do some other things I’m feeling here.” Her voice held back a knowing laugh.  

Giles leaned his head back and laughed in return. He had worked so hard to hide his growing feelings from her, sure that they could never be reciprocated. What a fool he’d been to imagine he could conceal anything from such a talented witch. A lucky fool, he thought, such an incredibly lucky fool. He bent to kiss her again. This time, it was slow and deep and exploratory, blossoming between them like a sunrise, full of color and surprise.     
She took both of her hands in his and stared into his eyes. Her smile was just a few short degrees from smug, he thought, and decided not to mention it. After all, he was grinning, and as they wordlessly moved toward his bedroom, hand in hand, he found himself unable to rearrange his features into anything but an expression of purest joy.


	11. Coffee and Scones

The next morning Giles woke from a sensual dream to the even more sensual reality of Willow’s small form curled trustingly against him. Even as he marveled at her warmth, listened to her even breathing, he couldn’t quite regain the sense of certainty, of rightness, that had carried them into each other’s arms and into a bliss that he hadn’t felt in years, since before Jenny. Over the past few months, he had fought his growing attraction to her, knowing that she could never return his interest. All the evidence he had marshaled to defend his needy heart against disappointment had not been erased by a single night in her arms. He was still more than twenty years older than she. She was his closest and most trusted colleague. She had been exclusively involved with women for the past few years. She was beautiful, intelligent, powerful…What could he possibly have that she would want?     
Well, he had coffee at least. He was and would always be a tea drinker, but one morning not long her arrival, Willow had spent a cheerful half hour tutoring him in the art of brewing good coffee. He slipped from the bed, put on his paisley silk robe, and went to the kitchen, wondering what she would say when she awoke. Would she decide it had been a mistake?   

He returned, bearing a tray, to find her sitting up in bed, wearing the oxford shirt he had discarded the previous night, brushing her gleaming hair. It crackled with static electricity, and he felt a quick thrill of response, partly to the magical energy he could sometimes sense around her, partly to the glimpse of her breasts in the unbuttoned shirt. Her bright smile as he entered the room was reassuring. He envied her apparent ability to read his emotions.  

“Coffee! Oh, yum—and are those scones?” She deliberately mispronounced the word to rhyme with owns, as she’d done when she first came to England, and he rolled his eyes.  

“Yes. Not perfectly fresh, but warmed.” He put the cup in her outreached hand. “Would you like to eat here, or shall I build a fire?”   

“Here. Sit. What’s the matter?” She patted the bed and he handed her the coffee cup, then set the scones on the bedside table and slipped in beside her. She took a large sip, sighed in satisfaction, and leaned over to place a kiss on his cheek.  

“This mind reading ability you’re developing is a little disturbing. Can’t a man have any privacy at all?” Giles asked. Delaying, he knew he was delaying. He took off his glasses, but she put her free hand on his before he could begin polishing them on his robe.  

“I’m not reading your mind, Giles. Do you mind if I keep calling you Giles? Because Rupert, I don’t know, feels strange to me. I may have to find you a nickname.” Willow smiled confidently. “See, that proves it, because I’d know what you wanted me to call you if I was a mind reader.” She sipped again.

“Good coffee, by the way. No, it’s the aura thing again. I can’t do this with most people, but I know you really well, and I can kind of sense things. Like, generally how you’re feeling.”   

“So you said, last night.” She looked at him, expectantly, so he gathered his tattered emotions and spoke. “I just…I didn’t expect this, Willow. I didn’t think it was possible that you returned my interest. I don’t know what…what you want from me. If I can give you what you need. Uh, well, for one thing,” he paused, “until rather recently you were gay.”  

Willow took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay. First of all, remember how Kennedy was right, about us? Me-and-Kennedy us, not the me-and-you us.”

‘Me-and-you us,’ Giles thought, was an awkward and thoroughly appealing phrase.

“One of the things she said, that day, was that I was bisexual, not gay. And I’ve been thinking about it a lot since then.” She stared into her coffee cup. “I was pretty young when I fell in love with Tara, but when I did…Goddess, I couldn’t imagine being in love with anyone else, ever. And so I figured if I was that passionately in love with a woman, I had to be gay. The fact that I felt so much more intensely for her than I had for Oz, or for Xander….” She trailed off, looking straight ahead. Giles followed her gaze toward the window, knowing that she was seeing not dark woodwork and morning sunshine, but the past.  

“But it wasn’t just me discovering my sexuality. I mean it was, but it was Tara. It was just…Tara.” The name is almost a whisper, her face still distant. He   
is ashamed of his sudden pang of jealousy. He had liked Tara.  

“She was a lovely woman,” Giles said. “I wish I’d known her better.”   

Willow turned away to put her coffee cup down. “What I’ve been figuring out, since I came to London, is that it didn’t matter that Tara was a woman. I’d have felt the same way if she had been a man. Something about her, just, just resonated with me. We fit together, like two pieces of a puzzle. That’s why losing her made me so…” Willow turned to Giles, her eyes glistening. “I never, never thought I’d feel that way again. I was so empty, I thought I’d never be…. I didn’t expect this either. I’ve known you forever! And then I looked at you…and you were…” She started to cry, and he gathered her in his arms, feeling her shoulders shake, wanting to be strong for her, wanting to be everything she could ever want or need.   

Finally, she turned a damp face to him. A resolve face. “Giles, I know you’re older than I am, and I know that I’m bisexual, and we work together, and that might be a problem for you. But I also know I’m in love with you.” She smiled, still a little shaky with tears.   

“Oh, Willow. Willow. I do love you so. We’ll figure it out, whatever we need to…” and then they kissed, frantic and passionate and hungry, and their bodies took over what their brains were still trying to understand. The plate of scones was knocked to the floor, unnoticed as they made love for the second time, as if sealing an oath, every touch promising that this would not be the last time, that they had found something precious and would not let go.


	12. Shanshu Who?

The investigation into the mystery of William Givenson continued. Since his human past had been verified, or at least its paper trail established, Giles reassigned those researchers to discreetly gather additional materials, from the growing Council Archives and from libraries and databases across Europe. While Ellen compiled a detailed history of Spike, also known as William the Bloody, Neville, who had a slightly weaker stomach, searched for any records or prophecies that mentioned a vampire becoming human, or a vampire with a soul. Many of the latter clearly referred to Angel, but some were more ambiguous. Giles and Willow carefully reviewed everything, while she continued seeking memory spells. A love for research had been the common ground on which they met since their earliest days in Sunnydale, and both were enjoying the new pleasure of having a lover who understood and shared that enthusiasm.   

Initially, they had hoped to keep their relationship, if not secret, at least not widely known. But like any office, the New Council was a hotbed of gossip, and the fact that Willow had been living at Giles’ flat since her arrival had given the rumor mill a running start. While most of the staff seemed to accept their new closeness, one morning Willow overheard an unpleasant remark in the ladies room, to the effect that Giles’ virility required the dual stimulus of both youth and witchcraft. More angry on her lover’s behalf than her own, she considered her response carefully before she flushed the toilet and emerged from her stall. Conversation halted as she washed her hands, so she filled the awkward silence with the cheerful observation that, while Giles could reassign staff to unpleasant foreign posts, she had the capacity to turn them into small, vulnerable amphibians.   

After that, talk died down. Giles maintained an English reserve at the office, but became more demonstrative and relaxed at home, showing a playfulness and passion that Willow had suspected but never seen. They spent a fair number of their evenings in Giles’ office, assessing the bits and scraps of information found by Ellen and Neville. “Here, this is interesting,” said Giles on one such night. Willow reached up from where she was sprawled on the newly installed leather sofa.  

“Give it here. Wanna see.” He handed it to her.  “That’s Neville’s translation. He’s damned good,” said Giles. “Apparently there was a fifth-century document in Latin that had then been encoded, using a cipher based on ancient Sumerian. The fellow who wrote this down was a cautious bugger.”   

She was already skimming the pages. “Shanshu. The vampire with a soul will fulfill his destiny…. crucial role in the coming apocalypse. He will shanshu and….become human?” She met Giles’ eyes. “It fits. Didn’t Angel’s letter say they were trying to stop an apocalypse? If they did, maybe Spike got rewarded.” Willow began to laugh.  

“And the funny part is….?” Giles raised an eyebrow in a manner calculated to make her laugh harder.   

“Oh, stop being British at me.” Willow shook her head. “I’m just thinking, if this was Shanshu and Spike’s the one who got it, wouldn’t Angel be pissed! Pissed-angry I mean, American pissed, not drunk. Though he might want to get drunk, too.”   

Giles smiled at the thought. He’d come around to a grudging, posthumous respect for Angel, although he would never learn to like him. “Indeed.” He pushed his swivel chair back from the desk. “That’s just a summary, by the way. I’d love to check the original, but according to this, the Scroll of Aberjian was in the hands of Wolfram & Hart. The Los Angeles branch.”  

“Long gone, then.” Willow sat up. “So, do you think it’s time to bring Bill Givenson in on this? He has a right to know who he is. And if it’s really Shanshu, maybe it’s a reward from the Powers that Be. Maybe it’s a good thing instead of a plot.”   

“Could be; I’m not completely convinced yet. In any case, I can’t see a well-bred Englishman like our Mr. Givenson being thrilled to learn he was once William the Bloody, known for his creative use of railroad spikes.” Giles stood, stretched. “Let’s go home, love. And remind me to give Neville a raise or something.”  

“Or at least a day off.” She rose, and they carefully locked the files away. Just as Giles was about to shut off the lights, the phone rang.   “Oh, let it ring,” Willow said, “don’t be all responsible-guy.”

But Giles picked up the receiver.  “Hello….Kennedy! What’s happened?” Willow was suddenly alert. She poised her finger over the speakerphone button, and Giles nodded.  

“Giles, it’s Andrew. We got attacked by vamps tonight, and they had a demon with them.” Willow could hear the exhaustion in Kennedy’s voice.  

“Is he all right?” Giles asked.   

“He will be. He’s in the hospital now, he just got out of surgery. But Giles, he, he....lost a leg.”


	13. A Small White Room

For a long time, Willow hadn’t had much feeling about hospitals, one way or the other. A healthy child, she hadn’t spent much time there until high school, when the supernatural brought emergency room visits into her routine. But it wasn’t until those hours at Xander’s bedside at Sunnydale General, looking at his bandaged head and knowing what dreadful absence was hidden under layers of white gauze, that she had truly learned to hate hospitals.   

She squared her shoulders, tried to shift from resolve face into something a little friendlier, and entered the small white room. “Andrew?”   

He looked small and very, very young, but gave a wide smile and a little wave from his bed, which was cranked up to a sitting position. Three or four comic books were scattered around him. Willow set a vase of daffodils from the hospital gift shop on the bedside table and leaned over to touch his shoulder, holding back a smile at his Star Wars pajama top.   

“Hey Andrew, how was the trip back from Rio?” She didn’t want to look at the flatness of the bed under the pale blue blanket, where the bottom of his left leg should have been. There were plenty of other bandages, and one side of his face was dark with bruises, but his expression was cheerful.  

“Fine. By which I mean, I don’t remember any of it, which is fine with me, because plane travel, boring, but I was so drugged up, it was like transporter technology! One minute I’m in Brazil, then I wake up and they tell me I’m in London.” He paused. “To be honest, I’m still pretty druggy, so if I don’t make any sense, that’s why.”  

“Andrew, don’t worry. I promise not to expect you to make sense.” Willow smiled wryly, sitting down on the molded-plastic chair beside the bed. “Giles is going to try to come by later, he’s got a bunch of appointments today.”   

“Oh, okay. I know Obi-wan’s a busy guy. So how are you?”  

“Obi-wan? Do not let him catch you calling him that.” The joke reassured her: Andrew might be maimed, but he was somehow unchanged.   

“Oh, I used to call him that all the time. It made him do that really cute eyebrow thing and get all pompous and British. But, really, he is our wise old guide, who teaches to use the Force for good, so it fits.”   Willow thought about the first time she came to England, when Giles’ voice, telling tales of his own experiences with magic, had pulled her out of her terrible darkness. Yeah, Obi-wan.

“Well, young Jedi, Obi-wan said to tell you there’s a job at the Council waiting for you, if you want it.”

Andrew grinned. “Really? Could I be his assistant again? Or I could do research. No more field work for this Jedi, anyways.” His face fell. “I blew it again. At least nobody died saving my life this time. Kennedy was so awesome! I’m really glad she’s not dead.”  

“Me too,” Willow said softly. “How is she?”  

“She’s great….” Andrew looked at Willow, but her head was lowered, a curtain of hair hiding her thoughts from him. “Not, I mean, not that she doesn’t miss you. Because she did, does, but I mean as a Slayer. It was great working with her.”   

“So how are things in the barrio? Did she get those vamp nests cleared?” Willow wasn’t sure what she wanted to hear: that Kennedy was happy, or that she still missed her. A change of subject was safer.   

“Oh, totally! Between her and Father Miguel, teaching the people in the slums to use crosses and holy water and stakes, the vamps pretty much stopped seeing them as easy prey. The poor no longer need fear the threat of the Vampyre,” he intoned. “Well, not as much, anyway. But then they started moving into the nightclubs, there’s a fabulous club scene in Rio, and mostly everybody’s so high they don’t even notice till they’re half drained. So we used to go out dancing every night, except we were really hunting. My mission was to ID the vampyres and point them out to Kennedy, and then she’d lure them to a dark corner and dust them.” He coughed, pointed to the bedside table, and Willow poured water from the plastic jug into a matching cup. Andrew took a long drink.  

“Sorry. They said the meds would give me drymouth. Anyway, we had this great routine going, I used to carry this little spray bottle of holy water, and be like ‘I’m so hot, I need to cool off,’ and spray it around and see how people reacted.” His smile faded. “But then I guess they caught on. Half a dozen vampyres and this really smelly demon jumped us on the way home one night. I thought I was dead for sure, but Kennedy….she saved me.”

Willow could picture the scene; she had always been awed by Kennedy’s grace and power in battle. Andrew was a mediocre fighter at best, but he hadn’t given up, and her ex-lover had defeated six vamps and a demon, then run two miles to the emergency room with a bleeding Andrew in her arms.  “She said you fought really well.”  

“I don’t remember much after the demon bit me. But she did take off her bra and made a tourniquet out of it so I wouldn’t bleed to death. She’s very resourceful.” Andrew waved his hand, and Willow handed him the cup again.   

“Giles didn’t tell me that detail.” Willow smiled sadly, remembering Kennedy’s fierce energy, the intensity that shone from her dark eyes.  

Andrew’s eyes had closed. “Um, Willow. Morphine drip taking effect here… Before I fall asleep again? Tell Giles I’m sorry I blew my first field assignment. But I still want to fight evil, okay? I mean, if Xander can fight evil with one eye, I guess I can do it on one leg.”   

“Oh, Andrew. Giles is just glad you’re still alive, and so am I.” She reached over to gently stroke his hair, wondering where Xander was at that moment. Andrew smiled up at her, eyelids drooping. “You’ve done fine, Andrew, and you’re one of us, okay?”  

He mumbled something that might have been ‘all I wanted,’ but he was already drifting into sleep. Willow took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and concentrated on his aura. The color patterns she remembered were still there, tinted with a shimmer of pain, but steady; oddly, the aura remained whole around the place where his leg had been. Yes, she decided. She could tell Giles that Andrew was going to be all right.     
“I’ll see you soon,” she whispered, and quietly took her leave.


	14. Whose Life is It, Anyway?

“No.”  

Bill sat back in his chair, his arms folded over his chest, and glared. Willow and Giles, seated on either side of him at the end of the long, polished table, shared a glance.  

“Bill,” Willow began, “I realize this is hard to believe, but when you’ve seen as many unbelievable things as I have, it gets easier. All the evidence—”  

“Evidence!” He cut her off, blue eyes blazing in an unnervingly familiar way. “A bunch of bizarre theories, a physical resemblence and some foolishness about recognizing my aura. You’re telling me that my entire life, everything I remember, is a lie. That I’m really a vampire.”   

“Well, not anymore, obviously, but yes, you used to be. Your new life is your reward. You saved the world! Possibly more than once!” Willow looked beseechingly at Giles. “Help me out here, will you?”   

Bill was up out of his chair now, pacing around the conference room. “And this last time I saved the world, you say, was four months ago. Frankly, I think I would remember that. You’re saying I never went to Oxford, I never lived in Hong Kong or Geneva or Romania, I never broke my arm on a climbing trip in Switzerland when I was twelve. Bollocks!”   

“Please calm down, Mr. Givenson.” Giles’ voice was quietly authoritative. “We understand this is difficult to take in, but your past may have ramifications that will affect your future. We have taken some pains to confirm our suspicions, and we felt it unwise to leave you in the dark any longer.”  

“My past. _My_ past as a ruthless, vicious vampire for over a century, who reformed himself and got a soul at the end.” Bill spat the words at them. “That’s the past you expect me to accept? Have you any idea what it feels like to be told all your memories are falsehoods, that your mind has been manipulated?”   

“Actually, yes,” said Willow mildly. “I have a friend who’s really a mystical key between dimensions. She was created in human form as Buffy’s sister by a bunch of monks, who figured the Slayer would keep her safe. There was this hell-god…well, it’s a long story. But yeah, it was pretty weird when we found out Dawn hadn’t always been Buff’s little sister, because she was there in our memories.” She turned to Giles. “Maybe we should have Dawn talk to him. She knows what this feels like, remember how she flipped out when we found out what she was?”  

“That’s a thought,” Giles said. Bill was sitting again, his head between his hands, slender fingers rubbing his temples. “Connor has been through this as well. Perhaps we can invite the two of them to London, or at least set up a conference call, get the benefit of their experiences.” Giles and Willow shared a glance, then looked sympathetically at the young man they couldn’t help thinking of as Spike.

He looked up, reached out a hand toward two thick files Giles had placed on the conference table.   “Look, I’m… utterly gobsmacked by this. I can’t accept it. I’d like to look at the information you’ve gathered, get a sense of what you…believe to be true. But right now, I’m telling you that I’m a human being, I was born in 1973 in Kent, and my name is William Lawrence Givenson.” He stood, straightening his shoulders. “I am not Spike.”  

Giles stood, nodding. “Take the files and review them, by all means. I understand that this makes very little sense to you; unfortunately, that doesn’t keep it from being true.” The glare Bill shot him was pure hatred. Giles had seen that look from Spike before, when the vampire had been chained in his bathtub, subsisting on pig blood and fury. But the young man took the files and stalked from the room without a word. He would have slammed the door, but the pneumatic hinges held and it closed behind him with a sound like a sigh.   

Giles sat down in the chair Bill had vacated, his discouraged posture mirroring that of its last occupant It never got easier, giving people bad news, even though he had done it so many times: _Your daughter is a Vampire Slayer, chosen to fight evil. You used to be a vampire known for torturing people with railroad spikes. Your friend has lost an eye, a leg. Your daughter is dead._ He scrubbed his hands through his thinning hair, wanting nothing more than to wrap himself around Willow’s body, drown himself in her warmth, forget everything, false memories and real ones alike.   

And then she was beside him, one hand gently rubbing the back of his neck, the. He sat back, looking up into her tilted face, with its wry, enchanting smile.  

“Well, that went badly,” she said.   

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=  

To: Willow@NWC.uk.org    
From: Buffy@NWC.it.org    
Re: Coming to Merrie Olde!  

Hey Will,  

Just wanted to let you know, Dawn & I will be coming to see you! She’s decided she doesn’t want to go back to the U.S. for college and is checking out schools in England. Things are pretty quiet here in Rome for once, so we get to do some shopping and hanging out and girl talk! Yay.    Thanks for letting me know about Andrew. He’s a pain, but I’m glad he’s not dead. If anyone’s going to kill him, I’d like it to be me, LOL. I haven’t got a reservation yet, but I’ll email you when I know when we’re coming in, probably a week from tomorrow. See you soon!   

Love,   Buffy


	15. Bracing for Wig

“Oh, dear.”   

Willow knew what Giles was thinking. She’d been thinking the same thing. Buffy was great, Buffy was her best friend, Buffy was going to wig. Facing an apocalypse was one thing, but they were anticipating the mother of all freakouts.  

“So which one do you think will be worse?” she asked, curling closer to him on the sofa “The Return-of-Spike Wig, or the Willow-and-Giles--Eww Wig?”

He laughed and put his arm around her.   

“At least her reaction to Spike’s return won’t include making me feel both elderly and perverse. She never did like the idea that I might have a personal life.” He stroked Willow’s hair, enjoying the way it gleamed in the flickering firelight . 

“Well, you did sleep with her mother,” she observed.

Giles turned to her, an eyebrow raised.   “I never slept with Joyce.” He grinned evilly. “It’s very difficult to fall asleep on the hood of a police car.” Willow snickered, but he continued in a more serious tone. “I suppose Buffy would rather have seen me with her mother than with you, if it comes to that. We were of an age, and Joyce was a lovely woman. But she was also my Slayer’s mother. It would have been…complicated at best.”   

“You were the closest thing to a father Buffy had,” Willow said quietly. “Tell you what, I’ll handle the me-and-you freakage if you’ll deal with ‘Spike’s not dead again.’”  

“It’s a deal.” He kissed her forehead to seal it. “The last time I saw her, I had to tell her that Spike had returned and died again. I won’t be surprised if she stops believing anything I say after this.” They sat quietly for a few moments, basking in the gentle light from the fireplace and the simple sense of being at home in one another’s arms.  “Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Giles said. “I had a rather convoluted voice mail from Andrew today. Full of mysterious portents. Some sort of pattern he’s uncovered whilst reading The Times, which he thinks we ought to be concerned about.”  
    
Willow yawned. “Probably the black market in Star Wars action figures. I was planning to visit him this week anyway. I’ll find out what he thinks is up.” She closed her eyes and stole a peek at her lover’s aura. Gold and green, the hints of tension around his head and shoulders fading…and that deep glow that signaled the earliest stages of arousal. She smiled and turned to kiss him, as the flames leaped in the fireplace.   

=-=-=-=-=-=-=  

Dinner was getting cold, and Sharon’s irritation had turned to worry by the time she heard Rudy’s key in the lock.   

“Where have you been? Is everything all right? And would it have been too much trouble to phone me?” She pulled the lasagna out of the cooker and pulled back the foil. A bit overdone, but it would do.

When she turned around, he was standing in the middle of the kitchen, still wearing his coat. He had a vague, distracted look in his eyes.   “I went to see that doctor.” He unbuttoned his jacket, slowly. “Like you wanted.” She bustled around him, setting out the dinner, pouring drinks, her usual evening’s pretense of normality.   

“Well, that’s good then. Do you think he can help?” She tried to keep the desperation out of her voice. She didn’t want to leave him, and she was afraid of what might happen if she did, but his rages, his fears and his flashbacks had become more than she could live with . If this new doctor could keep the past from overwhelming him, maybe they could get back to their lives. She could love him again. 

 “I…I think so.” He seemed tired but calm as they sat down to eat. His appetite was better than it had been in a while, she noticed, and his plate was soon empty. “Pass me the…the….” He stopped, then pointed to the breadbasket. “That.”  “The bread?” She held out the plate, but he was staring into space.   “I couldn’t remember the word. Isn’t that odd? Bread, I knew what it was but I couldn’t remember what it was called.” He shook his head.

Sharon watched him carefully as they finished their meal.   “So tell me a bit about this doctor you saw. What’s his name again?” He didn’t respond. “Rudy? Hello, I asked about the doctor. You’re a million miles away.”   

“I’m sorry,” he said. “What did you say?”   

“I just asked you what the doctor’s name was,” Sharon replied, scraping the last bite of lasagna from her plate. He was definitely tired, she thought. Or something.   

“Doctor… Doctor….” He looked up at her, and there was fear in his eyes. “I can’t remember his name.”

=-=-=-=-=-=-=  

Buffy had turned down Willow’s offer to meet them at the airport. “I’ve saved the world half a dozen times, I think I can make it from Heathrow to the hotel,” she had said. “And I know you’ve got stuff to do. Dawn and I will settle in, you can meet us there around seven and we’ll go out for a drink, ‘kay? I can’t wait to catch up!” I can, Willow had thought as she switched off her cell phone, but it was, as ever, simpler to let Buffy set the agenda.  

Her arrival at the hotel room launched a brief but intense round of squealing and hugging. Buffy looked good, Willow thought as she disentangled herself. Her hair was very blonde and sleek, and she was dressed in something that looked Italian and designery, at least to Willow’s admittedly limited fashion sense. She saw her own loose gold sweater and long, black skirt in the full-length mirror and sighed inwardly.   

Willow looked good, Buffy thought, watching her friend and her sister hug. Her hair was longer, her sweater was neither baggy nor fuzzy, and her smile wasn’t strained. Of course, she wasn’t fighting with Kennedy any more. She wondered if there was a new girlfriend in the picture? Time for a good long girls night out of catching up. She grinned.  

I can’t wait to get to college, Dawn thought. No matter how much time had gone by, she was always Buffy’s little sister when she was with the Scoobies, always just slightly on the outside of their private club. She was used to it, but it got old. It was easier in Rome, where it was just her and Buffy. But it was time to get her own life, stop being her older sister’s satellite.   

“So, what’s the plan? Have you guys had dinner?” Willow asked.   

“Yeah, we ate downstairs after we checked in,” Buffy said. “Flying always makes me hungry. I thought we could go out for a drink and just hang, kind of a girls’ night.”

She looked at Dawn, a question in her eyes.  “I’m pretty tired, you guys go catch up.” She would reread the Oxford brochures that were in her suitcase, Dawn decided, and think about meeting cute English guys who had no idea she was really a mystical key, who had never heard of hellgods and vampires.   

“You sure?” Buffy asked. Dawn knew her well enough to hear the unspoken ‘if you really want to come, okay, but thanks for not wanting to.’  

“No, I’m cool.” She waved a hand toward the bed. “I’ll probably crash early, maybe watch a little cable. Go, have a good time.”  Willow gave her another quick hug. “You and me, we’ll have lunch before you go, ok, Dawnie?”  

“Sure, that’d be great.” Lunch would be a good time to tell her how much she detested being called Dawnie. It made her feel like a six-year-old, and the truth was, she’d never been six, and wasn’t about to start.


	16. Courage with Coconuts

“So,” Buffy said cheerfully as she slid into the bench behind the table. “What’s the what? Dish me! How do you like London? And working with Giles?”

Willow took her time settling her olive suede jacket and brocade bag over the back of her chair. The bar was bright, crowded, modern and noisy, each table a bright primary-colored dot, walls hand-painted in huge abstract purple swirls over gold. She’d suggested a quiet little wine bar, but Buffy had reminded her that the smell of wine made her sick, and they’d both fallen silent for a bit, remembering Caleb. Willow then proposed that they walk a bit, until they found a place that appealed. After a few blocks of window-shopping, Buffy’s eye had been caught by a flash of neon. “This one looks like they’ll know how to make a good strawberry daiquiri,” she had noted, and so they’d made their way in, Buffy flashing her Californian blondeness at the host and getting a flirty grin and a corner booth in return.

“The New Council is going to be so great, Buffy. It’s going to work for the Slayers, not controlling them and manipulating them. With Giles setting all the new policies, no Slayer’s ever going to have to put up with what you did.” Willow turned to the approaching waitress, a towering brunette in a short skirt. “Um, one strawberry daiquiri, and a pina colada, please.” While Buffy had wine issues, strawberries made Willow think of Rack, something she tried hard not to do.

“Giles and you,” said Buffy.

“Giles and me what?” Willow asked quickly, wondering if Buffy had gotten a million times more perceptive since she’d last seen her.

“Giles and you, setting up the New Council. From what I hear, you’re a pretty big cheese there yourself. You’re the, I don’t know, the Stilton to his Cheddar. Or something.” The drinks arrived, and Willow handed over her Council credit card.

“I’m debriefing the Senior Slayer on recent developments in Rome, so this is a business expense,” she grinned.

Buffy took a long sip of her drink, and adjusted the drape of the fringed tweed blazer she wore over a lacy camisole. “Senior Slayer? I think I like that. It doesn’t make me sound old, does it?” Willow shook her head. “So how is Giles? Working too hard, worrying about everyone?”

“He’s good. He’s really, really good.” Don’t babble, Willow told herself sternly. “You know, he’s great to work with. I’ve taken on a bunch of projects, pretty much anything involving magic, so I think he’s less stressed since I got here. So tell me about Rome! What’s up with that Immortal guy?” I am such a chicken, she thought. Pretty soon I’ll be growing feathers.

Buffy twirled a lock of hair around her finger as she spoke. “He’s okay, but it’s just fun for both of us. I like him, but…I don’t want to get attached. I was just getting past that whole Spike thing, figuring out how I felt. Those last days in Sunnydale…it seemed like maybe we could start over, that he was different and maybe I could be different too.” She paused, staring past Willow to the crowd of expensively dressed Londoners flirting at the bar. “Then I find out from Andrew that he’s alive, in L.A. with Angel, and I’m freaking, first because he’s back and how weird is that? And then more freakage because he hasn’t tried to see me so maybe everything I’ve been thinking about me and him is wrong. And then Giles shows up and ooops! Spike’s dead again, plus Angel’s dead, and they’re both big damn heroes….”

Willow nodded encouragingly, not sure what to say. She had no clear idea how many revelations Buffy could handle in one night without major head explosions, and very little enthusiasm for finding out.

“What I’m saying,” Buffy continued, “is that I’m not sure I’m really over Spike. I think I really am over Angel, because we got to say the stuff we needed to say to each other. I hate that I’m never going to see him again…but with Spike, there were so many loose ends left it’s practically fringe.” She sipped moodily, then sat up straight and did her best perky smile. “So what’s new with you? Seeing anybody?”

Willow took a big gulp of her drink, and a deep breath. Unfortunately, she did both at once, and the resulting coughing fit took several minutes, leaving her face as pink as Buffy’s daiquiri.

When Willow was no longer gasping, Buffy grinned. “Okay, judging by the reaction, I’d say that’s a yes! Good on you, Will! So tell me all about her. Is she English? Somebody at the Council?”

“English, yes.” Now or never, Willow thought. And never’s not really an option. “Council, also a yes. She—not so much.”

“She, not so… ? Oh! You’re seeing a guy?!”

Willow blushed a bit. “Well, um, bi now. I mean, I guess I always was, but…anyway. He’s a little older than me, he’s incredibly smart, and um, I just fell in love.” She was starting to enjoy herself a little.

“How much older?” Buffy asked. “Like I have a right to ask! But, not a vampire, right? Or a werewolf, or anything?” She finished her drink. “And how bizarre are our lives that I’m asking that?” She waved a hand at the passing waitress, who responded with the international sign language for ‘another round, coming right up.’

“Hey, we’re Sunnydale girls.” Willow polished off her drink. “No, he’s one hundred percent human,” she grinned. “Trust me, I’ve checked.”

Buffy turned unexpectedly serious. “I’m glad for you. You seem, really happy. Happier than you’ve been in a long—”

“So, you ladies feeling lonesome this evening?” A tall, slightly balding man interrupted. “Can I buy you a round?”

“No!” Two voices spoke in unison. The man wavered, but managed to stay upright, even in the face of a Slayer Death Glare. Willow turned to him and said, “We’re old friends, and we’re just catching up, so thanks but no thanks.” He muttered something about Americans, and Buffy’s glare intensified as he wandered off toward the bar.

“I hope some American vampire-chick eats you for dessert tonight,” Buffy said. said. This set off a fit of giggles which lasted through the arrival of the second round of drinks.

“So, when do I get to meet this mystery man of yours?”

“Actually, you already have.” Pina Coladas, Willow thought. Courage with coconuts.

“Really? When?”

Deep, liquid-free breath. “Um, in Sunnydale. Sophomore year, in the library.” It was actually kind of fun watching the revelation cross Buffy’s face, Willow thought.

Buffy closed her mouth and shook her head slowly. “You and…Giles? You and Giles.”

“Me and Giles. Surprised us too. But it’s really good. It’s big with the happy.” She watched Buffy’s face anxiously. “You’re not gonna be all freaked with this, are you? Because Giles was kinda worried about that, but…” Buffy reached across the table and laid her hand on Willow’s.

“Um, surprised, but…” she paused, “not in a bad way.” Willow let out a small sigh of relief. “I love you, and I love Giles, and so if you’re happy, I’m happy. Although, majorly weirded out, but it’s all good.” She sipped. “I always thought of Giles as, like, our parents’ generation.”

“Well, technically he is,” Willow said reasonably. “But you know, we’re not kids any more. And frankly, with all the stuff we’ve been through, I feel a lot older than twenty-two, so the age thing—we just don’t think about it.”

“So, tell me all, how, when, but like, no details because it’s Giles and…wait a minute.” Buffy’s attention focused, laser-like, on the balding man. He was weaving toward the door, hand in hand with a dark-haired girl. “That guy.”

Willow turned. “The one who wanted to buy us a drink?”

“Unbelievable. The chick he’s leaving with is a vamp. My spidey-sense has been twitching, but the Joan Collins shoulder pads from Hell are a dead giveaway, pardon the pun.” She sighed and rummaged in her purse. “I can’t get one damn night off. Ok, you want to stay here while I do a quick staking? And order me another round, I’m going to want it.” She stood, tucking the stake unobtrusively under her jacket.

“Nothing like a strawberry daiquiri to wash the taste of vamp dust out of your mouth,” Willow said, smiling. Buffy made her way through the crowd, impressively steady on her high heels. Slayer metabolism, Willow thought. She motioned to the waitress.

“Another round?”

“Um, one more daiquiri, and a glass of ice water, please.” She leaned back in her chair, suddenly feeling the alcohol in her system. She was pretty sure Buffy would still want to tease Giles, but at least she wasn’t upset.

Of course there was still the Bill Givenson Factor, but that, thank Goddess, was Giles’ problem.


	17. Stakes and Fakes

Buffy looked up and down the street. “Like I need this,” she muttered to herself. She spotted BaldGuy and his Eighties-Vamp; he was clearly drunk, and she was pretending to be, steering her hapless companion toward the nearest alley. Slayer senses on full alert, Buffy followed them into the narrow space, the streetlights barely illuminating scribbles of graffiti.

“Not ‘ere, pet, lemme take you home….”the man was mumbling. The vampire, a dark-haired girl in heavy eyeliner, was was holding him against the brickwall, and he was clearly starting to find her strength and insistence disconcerting. Buffy slipped the stake into her right hand and tapped the girl’s shoulder with her left.

“That outfit is so over, babe. And so are you.” Not my best quip, she thought, but hell, I’m on vacation. The vampire turned, snarling, already in game face, and swung a fist. Buffy grabbed said fist in her free hand, and efficiently staked her with the other. The man gaped, then sneezed through the cloud of vampire dust.

“Where’sh she….what was that?” It wasn’t worth explaining, or even making up a remotely plausible story, Buffy decided. He was so drunk he wouldn’t remember it in the morning anyway.

“Trust me, you don’t want to know. Catch yourself a cab home and get some sleep, ‘kay?” She hooked an arm through his, walked him to the curb, and waved, hoping to hail a taxi. She was looking to her left and jumped with surprise when it pulled up on her right, but she pushed the still-dazed man toward it and he climbed in without protest.

As she turned to head back to the bar, a familiar figure on the other side of the street caught her eye. That confident stride was unmistakable, even without the black coat, and the face… “Spike?” she whispered, taking a step back. Then she shouted, “SPIKE!” she The man halted in mid-stride, as if he’d heard her, but then shook his head and continued on his way.

Don’t be stupid, she told herself. There must be a ton of guys with high cheekbones like that. Spike is gone. It’s just all these English accents making you think about him.

But she watched him through the passing traffic, until the man who couldn’t be Spike disappeared around the corner. Slowly, she turned back toward the bar where Willow was waiting for her.

 

Dawn clicked her cellphone closed and tucked in back into her purse. That was different: Giles wanted her help, rather than Buffy’s. And she certainly was—how had he phrased it?—“uniquely qualified.” She felt sorry for the guy, but it did feel good to know that she wasn’t the only person walking around with a head full of fake memories.

Giles hadn’t told her much about him: just that he worked for the Council, and appeared to be in his early thirties, but his memories had probably been created no more than a couple of months ago. He had just found out, and was having a difficult time accepting it. Well, duh! There was more to it, but Giles said he wanted to tell her and Buffy the whole story in person. She’s told Giles sure, of course she’d be willing to talk to the guy—Bill somebody. People could say they understood how it felt, but that was bull. She wondered what he really was—another chunk of mystical energy, like her, or something else?

Even better, Giles had offered to come in to Oxford with her, and show her around. He knew people working there, and he could introduce her to actual professors! While the Head of the American school in Rome had been optimistic about her chances of getting into Oxford, she knew she’d feel a lot more confident with Giles at her side.

She heard a click, and the hotel room door opened. Buffy tossed her bag on a chair and flopped down on the other bed.

“So how was your evening?” Dawn asked.

“Fine. Um, let’s see. Dusted a vamp, thought I saw Spike, Willow and Giles are in love. And I passed a really good shoe store, we’ll have to check it out if we have time tomorrow.” Buffy kicked off her shoes.

“Okay, Buff. Fine. You don’t want to tell me what you talked about, then don’t. I’ll just get it out of Willow when we have lunch. And Giles is taking me to Oxford, so there.” Dawn marched past her sister’s bed into the bathroom and shut the door just a little harder than necessary.

Buffy giggled.

 

“So, what seems to be the trouble, Mrs. Clark?” Dr. Phipps leaned forward in his seat. He hated clinic hours, but he did his best to look open and interested and compassionate,, despite the beginnings of a headache. Mrs. Clark had frizzy gray hair and heavily rouged cheeks that matched her red lipstick; it might have looked clownish if not for her worried expression. The woman beside her, in contrast, was dressed simply in jeans and a gray tee-shirt, sitting very still and looking blankly into the distance.

“It’s not me. It’s me daughter, Sylvia.” She motioned toward the young woman, who showed no reaction. “She’s had a bit of a rough time recently, so I popped by her flat for a visit. I was bringing her a cake I’d baked. And she didn’t recognize me! Her own mum!” Mrs. Clark twisted the handle of a battered purse between her hands. “She doesn’t know who I am, she doesn’t know her own name, she’s got, what-do-you-call, ambrosia. Sylvia, darling...” She turned to her daughter, who gave her a blankly pleasant smile in return.

Another amnesia case? Dr. Phipps thought to himself. Good Lord, it’s like one of those American shows on the telly. In medical school he had been taught that genuine amnesia was extremely rare, but three of his colleagues at King’s Hospital had mentioned seeing cases within the past few weeks. None had fit the standard profile of recent head injury, either. He began the checklist of questions, addressing them to Mrs. Clarkson rather than the unresponsive Sylvia, who stared into the middle distance, her features expressionless.


	18. What Andrew Found on Page Four

Buffy and Willow emerged from the tube station into wan November sunshine. Willow looked around, getting her bearings, then pointed. “This way.”

“Wow, you’re getting to be a real Londonian, if that’s a word, ” Buffy said admiringly as they turned down a quiet residential street of townhouses and wrought-iron railings. “I still get lost in Rome. And it doesn’t help that my Italian sucks.” She looked around, taking in the graceful old buildings. “You like living here?”

“I do, ” Willow replied. “It’s weird. It’s nothing like Sunnydale, but it feels more like home than anyplace I’ve lived since then. ”

“That’s looove, ” Buffy said in a teasing voice.

Willow grinned. “Could be.” She gave her companion a sidelong glance. “Getting tired of Rome? We could use you here, you know. Giles really wants to centralize the Slayer and Watcher training in England. You could teach the new Slayers a lot.” She stopped in front of a gray stone building, whose 18th-century façade was only slightly marred by a discreet wheelchair ramp along one side. A brass plaque beside the front door identified it as the Whitestone Rehabilitation Institute. “This is it.” As they climbed the front steps and rang the bell, she looked at Buffy again. “Think about it. As you saw last night, this town has some great shoe stores, not to mention me.”

The door opened, and a middle aged woman ushered them into a high-ceilinged foyer and spoke briefly with Willow. She introduced Buffy, then led the way up the sweeping staircase. “Private rehab clinic,” she explained. “Expensive, but the Council is paying for it. The First blew up the old building, but the Swiss bank accounts were left intact.” She knocked on a door with a brass number affixed to it.

“Come in, ” called Andrew. He looked up. “Willow! And, and, um, hi, Buffy.” A notebook slipped from his lap as he began nervously backing his wheelchair away from the door. “Um, glad to see you…and I really, really hope it ‘s mutual.”

Buffy laughed. “Relax, Andrew. I’m not here to kill you.” She gave him an evil grin. “Even if you deserve it. But Kennedy would be pissed at me after all the trouble she went to keep you alive.”

He let out a sigh. “Thanks. So, welcome to London! Hi, Will! Did Giles tell you I called?” The two women sat down on the bed, whose yellow coverlet matched the woodwork and the curtains. The room, while not huge, was spacious enough, nearly as big as the hotel suite she was sharing with Dawn, and more stylishly furnished.

“He did. Said you found some information? Although you’re supposed to be working on getting better and using the new leg and all, not Council stuff,” Willow replied. “How’s that going, by the way?”

“Pretty good. I have the final fitting for cyborg-leg tomorrow, and I’ve been doing hours of physical therapy every day. I’ve been getting around on crutches, but when I’m tired, I use the chair.” He spun in a small circle. “But I’ve been reading the papers, too, down in the Day Room. Where’s my notebook?”

Buffy picked it up from the floor and handed it to him. Newspaper clippings were neatly taped to each page, a date scribbled at the top of each. “So what’s the what?” she asked. “Do the papers here cover vamp attacks? That’d be a change from Sunnydale-on-de-Nile.”

“Sunnydale-on..? Oh, right, I get it.” Andrew laughed. “No, there’s nothing here that’s obviously supernatural.” He looked down. “Maybe I’m just making something out of nothing.”

Willow’s tone was businesslike. “Well, let’s see what kind of something you’re making. Because, hey, your something could nothing, but it could be something.” He smiled at her. Willow’s power intimidated him, but never when she was with him; it was only in her absence that he was able to think of her as a witch with awesome control over The Force. Buffy, on the other hand, scared him more than he wanted to admit.

“Okay, um… there seems to be a pattern, lots of cases of amnesia being reported here in London within the past few months. Actually, a reporter at one of the um, less reliable papers noticed it. The story was pretty sensational, but I thought it sounded possibly of mystical origin, so I started going through the back issues of the Times and some of the other papers. And I checked in the library here, they’ve got medical books and stuff, and amnesia’s actually pretty rare.” He handed the notebook to Willow, who leafed thoughtfully through the pages, Buffy looking over her shoulder. The first article was a few months old; it described a prominent businessman found wandering in Hyde Park, unable to recall his own name. Subsequent articles, organized chronologically, told similar stories of people admitted to clinics and hospitals with unexplained memory loss.

“Here, hand it over---” He flipped through the pages, then gave the notebook back to Buffy. “That’s the one that got me started.” The story, dated three weeks earlier, gave some statistics about the standard incidence and common causes of amnesia, noted that few of the reported cases fit the classic pattern, then speculated in dramatic fashion about terrorist attacks and drugs in London’s water supply as a possible cause. The back of the page, Buffy noted, appeared to be a photograph of a busty young woman wearing only a pair of low-rider jeans and a smile.

“Well, this reporter’s got some seriously trendy paranoia going,” Buffy observed, “but yeah, looks like something could going on. Good work, Andrew.” He grinned at her, and she grinned back.

“So you’ll take it to Giles?”

“Sure,” Willow said. “Maybe we can talk to some of these people, or their families, see if we can find any connections. Or I could take the traditional approach.” Andrew looked at her curiously. She grinned and cracked her knuckles. “Hack into the medical records, look for patterns there.”

The conversation moved on to other topics. Buffy passed along Dawn’s gift of chocolate and her promise to visit. Andrew asked Willow about various Council employees he had worked with, and soon they were engaged in vigorous gossip. Since Buffy had never met the people they were gossiping about, she wandered over to one of the two tall windows and looked out overlooked the quiet street, thinking about Willow’s suggestion.

She had gone to Rome in order to distance herself from everything related to Slaying. She had felt free, open to possibilities, for the first time in years, since the day she had met Merrick, her first Watcher. Lately, though, she had found herself patrolling the Roman streets without planning it, secretly regretting the city’s lack of vampiric activity. Giles claimed it was due to the the Vatican’s influence, back when he had recommended Rome as a place to start a post-Sunnydale, vampire-free life. Looking at the tiny park below her, an oval of trees and grass surrounded by a wrought-iron fence, she wondered if she could feel at home in London. Could she make a life here that included Slaying, but had room for other things, too? Or would the British accents around her keep bringing back too many memories?


	19. In Trafalgar Square

_  
London is never silent, but the poorly-lit streets are quiet, and he is enjoying the echo of his footsteps, their confident rhythm. He can move as silently as mist when he chooses, but for now, satiated, he wants to announce his presence, hoping that some drunken fool who fancies himself a tough will try to start something. Nothing like a nice bit of violence to top off an evening. The dark-haired woman clinging to his arm giggles, and he reaches down to affectionately pinch her bottom. Suddenly she stops, letting out a low moan. Something’s happening, in her head at least._

 _“Oooh, doesn’t he want you! All dark and red and bloody, my sweet boy. He thinks you’re tasty!” She shivers, and he pulls her closer. “Don’t let him touch you! He’ll take all our years, all our pretty nights, all the screaming. He wants to eat them all up!”_

 _“Hush, Dru. No worries, love. I’m the fella does the eating ‘round here.” He looks into the dark pools of her eyes, and in their blank depth, sees a familiar place. If he can just find the sense in her nattering, and keep her this side of hysteria… “Tell me, pretty princess, who wants a taste of your William?”_

 _She is rocking back and forth now. “He’s hungry. All the bad you’ve done, for him it’s meat and potatoes and rich red wine like blood, he’ll eat it all up like a big dog, and you’ll be all empty…” Another moan, and he knows he’d best be getting her home before he has to knock her unconscious and carry her. Getting on for dawn anyway. He kisses her, hard and fierce to bring her back to now, and she looks up at him and whimpers, lost. “Take me home, my Spike?”_

 _“Yes, love, we'll go home.” An arm around her waist, he steers her into the open space of Trafalgar Square, where the moon, just visible behind Nelson’s Column, sheds a cold light. A tall, pale man is lounging against one of the great bronze lions, but Spike ignores him and hopes the damn fool has the sense to do the same. No time for a scrap when Dru’s in one of her states._

 _But the damn fool clearly has no sense. He is crossing the plaza now, at a leisurely pace which puts him directly in their path. Without stopping, Spike punches him in the head as they pass, glad that Drusilla is on his left side, away from the man. As expected, the fellow drops like a stone._

 _Unexpectedly, he gets up._

 _“William the Bloody!” Spike spins around at the sound of his name. The bloke’s no vampire, but any human would be concussed at the very least from that blow. A demon perhaps? In any case, a worthy opponent. Drusilla sinks to the pavement, muttering and rocking, her hands fluttering. It’ll be a day or two before she makes any sense again, he knows, but still, he can’t help relishing the chance for a fight._

 _“So how’d you know my name?” Spike strips off his army greatcoat and lays it down beside Drusilla, who clutches it gratefully. He circles around, fists up. “If you know who I am, you know you’d do well to run away now. Or you’ll get what you deserve.”_

 _The man smiles coldly. “I know who you are, and what you’ve done. A trail of blood and gore to be proud of. I just want a word, and then I’ll run off, if you like.” He reaches out his hands, which have a lurid greenish glow, reminding Spike of the radar displays on a submarine._

 _Drusilla’s shriek is high and piercing, distracting them both. “NO! Don’t let him touch you, don’t let him touch you, no, his hands, his hands….” She degenerates into babble again, but Spike knows a warning when he hears it. Right then. He pulls a long knife from the sheath in his boot, and quickly jumps the few granite steps at the base of Nelson’s monument. Keep out of arm’s reach, that’ll make this fight a bit more of a challenge. His eyes turn yellow, and his grin shows red-tinged fangs._

 _He lashes out with a high kick to the chin, and the pale man falls backward but rises from the ground, silent and seemingly unharmed. They circle each other in the moonlight, leaping from the backs of the huge lions that guard the column, Spike trying to draw his opponent away from the weeping woman. A slice with the knife, but the man pulls back, tries to sweep Spike’s legs from under him with a roundhouse kick, and it’s an old trick, won’t work, Spike jumps, instinctively grabs the fellow’s shoulder as he spins, and suddenly long white fingers are clutching at his temples and a curious blankness is slipping over him…_

 _Drusilla is suddenly behind the man, pulling his head back by the hair, and the three of them grapple for an instant in a strange embrace until Spike’s knife hand comes up to slash at the grasping arm. The green glow is blindingly bright for a moment, then blinks out like an electric switch as the hand releases its grip on Spike’s head and drops to the paving stones. The man’s face goes even whiter as he looks down at his truncated limb. If there’s one thing Angel taught him it’s how to recognize weakness, and Spike grins as he severs the other arm. It feels weirdly boneless, like slicing through a sausage. Drusilla backs away from the white, bloodless hands with a look of horrified disgust, and begins to shriek, high and wordless, unnerving even to her companion. The pale man shakes his head once, in disbelief, then falls limply to the pavement._

 _Spike shakes off his game face as he grabs Drusilla by an arm, putting a hand across her mouth. Her cries stop abruptly, then turn to the whimpers of an exhausted child. Oh, she’s bad, he thinks; its’ a good job they fed well tonight. “Well, that was a bit of fun, but the night’s not young anymore. Let’s go, love.” He pulls her across the plaza to a side street, aware that the sky is growing lighter, not bothering to pick up the greatcoat. London’s still got plenty of demobbed soldiers, he’ll just steal another next time he’s hunting.  
_

Bill woke, gasping, all at once, and without realizing it, reached up to touch his forehead, his teeth, to reassure himself that he was not…

Switching on the lamp, he tried to even his breathing. He found the familiar setting of his bedroom comforting; everything was where it belonged, neat and known. His eye passed the stack of files on his desk, the incomplete history of William the Bloody taunting him. Surely that’s all it is, he thought. Read that stuff before you go to bed, serves you right if it seeps into your subconscious.

Though he hadn’t read anything about a fight in Trafalgar Square, or cutting off someone’s hands. The details were not fading as dreams usually do in the moments after waking—they remained, distinct and disturbing, more like memory than dream.


	20. Giles Speaks of Destiny

“This place is pretty slick,” Buffy observed as she and Willow walked past a row of cubicles. “I always sort of pictured the Council as all dark paneling and old guys. This looks like a law firm.” She ignored the whispers and the eyes that followed her. Willow had warned her that she was a legendary figure to the staff, but if there was one thing being a pretty American girl in Rome could teach you, it was how to feign obliviousness.

“The New Council—no longer stuck in the Middle Ages!” replied Willow. “Giles is really looking forward to seeing you, so I’m just going to drop you off at his office. I’ve got a conference call in an hour, and I want to get online and do some digging first.” They stopped. “Don’t tease him too much, okay?”

“I promise I’ll be nice to your boyfriend.” Willow sighed theatrically and continued down the hall. Buffy suppressed a giggle, and didn’t wait for a reply to her knock before opening the door.

“Buffy. Oh, it is good to see you again!” Giles rose from his desk and crossed to her, looking younger than she remembered from their last, tense meeting in Rome. He took in both her glossy blonde surface, stylishly dressed, perfectly made up, and the traces of exhaustion and lingering sadness underneath. She was thinner than he would like, but that was the style these days, he supposed.

“Giles!” Buffy wrapped her arms around her Watcher’s neck, and was pleased when he returned her hug with enthusiasm. She still thought of him as her Watcher, she had realized, and always would, no matter how much things changed. She grinned at him. “So, I hear you’re finally getting some? And with a younger woman, no less?”

Giles laughed, though he could feel himself blushing, and wondered just how much mocking he would have to endure. With his hands on her shoulders, he held her at arm’s length, searching her face. Her smile was mischievous, but he saw no anger or discomfort in her eyes. “Well, yes, actually I have fallen in love with Willow. I hope that you…you don’t…” Christ, he thought, he’d be ninety before he stopped blushing and stammering.

“I’m glad.” And the trust between them, broken and mended and broken so many times, was back, as strong as ever. “So, now can we drop the subject of your sex life, and never, ever speak of it again? If you guys are happy, go for it. I’ve missed you. And oh! I think I had a Slayer dream last night!”

Suddenly he was all Watcher. “A Slayer dream? Do tell me about it.” She sat on the leather couch, and taking a legal pad from the shelf beside his desk, he sat beside her. Her hands traced patterns in the air as she described a wide plaza on a moonlit night, huge statues of lions, a central column. She didn’t recognize it as any place she’d seen in Rome, but she had clearly seen Spike and Drusilla. Spike had fought with a man whose hands had an odd green glow.

“I’m not even sure it was a Slayer dream, because usually they’re about the future and this was definitely the past. It was like I was seeing a memory, or an old movie.” She pauses. “I’m thinking early 1950s, probably no later than ’55.”

Giles wrote on his pad: 1950-55, Spike, Trafalgar Square? Green hands. “How can you be so sure of the date?”

“What Drusilla was wearing. The cut of her dress, and the hat.” He turned to her, raising a questioning eyebrow. “History of Fashion, sophomore year elective at the U. of Sunnydale. I wrote a paper on Dior’s New Look and its influence on postwar fashion. Got an A-minus.”

“The benefits of a good education,” Giles responded, smiling. “So, how did the fight end?”

“The guy grabbed Spike’s head, and his hands were glowing, but then Dru jumped him. Then, big eww moment, Spike cut the guy’s hands off. They didn’t bleed, but they stopped glowing, and he collapsed, and Spike and Dru just took off and left him there.” She looked down at her lap. “I’ve had a bunch of dreams about Spike lately, but this one was different.” In a very quiet voice, she added, “Giles, I miss him. I’m having a really hard time with the fact that he was back in L.A. and he didn’t call me, because that means he never really believed that I loved him. And I know you don’t want to hear this, but I did, at the end. I loved what he’d become, I loved that he’d done that for me. After everything I did to him, all the ways I hurt him…and he died and he came back and he never really believed that I loved him.” When she looked up, her eyes were dry, but a well of hurt was behind them, deep and gray. Giles put his arms around her, wondering if the news he had to tell her would make her pain more or less. In either case, he had to say it, and she’d just provided a perfect opening.

“Actually, Buffy, I need to talk to you about Spike. There have been…some developments.”

=-=-=-=-=-=-=

“Buffy?” Giles looked with concern at his Slayer. He still thought of her as his Slayer, always would, he had realized, no matter how much things changed. She was curled in the corner of the couch, her Italian shoes on the floor and her stockinged feet tucked underneath her. Slowly, she looked up at him.

“So he’s back, but he’s not. It’s him, but he doesn’t remember me, or Sunnydale or anything. Giles, what am I supposed to do with this?”

“I don’t know,” he said gently. “But I couldn’t very well keep the information from you. He may or may not regain any memory of his life as Spike. Willow’s trying to find out more about the spell that was used. I’ve also asked Dawn to speak with him; she’s one of the few people that has ever had a false past implanted, so to speak. I haven’t mentioned his identity yet to her yet, only his counterfeit memories.”

“Yeah, I guess talking to Dawn makes sense.” Buffy sighed. “As much as anything in my life does. I tend to forget that most of her childhood never really happened, but I don’t know if she does. You will tell her about his, um, Spikiness, beforehand, right? She’s got her own history with him. I know they got pretty close the summer after—after Glory.”

“Yes, but I did want discuss that with you first. I have made plans to take Dawn on a visit to Oxford tomorrow, I expect she told you?”

“Oh, yeah, she told me.” Buffy’s short laugh was lacking in humor. “She doesn’t want me to come with her. I think if she could go off to college and not tell me where, she’d be happy. I mean, I get it. She wants her own life, away from Slaying and the Council and all this. I thought I did too. But I can’t get away from it, ever, can I? It’s….”

His arm around her was reassuring. If she couldn’t leave it behind, at least she wouldn’t have to do it alone. “No, I suppose not. It’s your life, Buffy. It’s my life too. Neither of us chose it, but there it is.”

“I think we did this conversation already. In the courtyard at Sunnydale High. You were going to be a fighter pilot, right?” She laughed. “I was thinking about modeling, which is every fifteen-year-old L.A. girl’s ambition.”

“Fighter pilot or grocer.” Giles took her hand in his. “It’s an old, sad truth, Buffy.” His face was serious, but his eyes were full of mischief. She waited for him to explain it all, to sum things up, in his old, wise, British-Watchery way.

He took a deep breath and said, “Destiny _sucks.”_


	21. Strangers on a Train

Giles glanced up from his watch, smiling with relief as he saw Dawn hurrying toward him on the train platform. His smile faded when he saw the look on her face. The reason for her stormy expression became clear when he noticed Buffy hurrying behind her.

“Dawn, good to see you.” He greeted the young woman with a hug. “And Buffy, this is an unexpected pleasure.” Buffy smiled apologetically, holding up two Starbucks cups with a shrug in lieu of an embrace.

“I told her she didn’t need to come, but she insisted,” Dawn said. “And I would have been on time, but she had to get coffee.” Dawn’s imitation Slayer Death Glare was coming along nicely, Giles noted.

“Well, now that we’re here, let’s get ourselves seated,” he said, looking up and down the platform in a distracted way. They boarded the train and found a group of four seats. Dawn made a point of sitting by the window and staring out. Buffy sat across from her, and Giles resigned himself to the role of buffer zone.

“I got you your favorite, mocha latte,” Buffy said, handing the cup to Giles to pass along. “And I really, really do understand that you need to be independent. But you’re my only family, and I promised mom I’d take care of you, and please stop being mad at me? Please?” No response. Giles shook his head, having some experience with teenage girls in full sulk mode. “Fine, Dawn, whatever,” Buffy sighed, turning away toward her own window as the train began to move.

“There you are! Sorry I’m late! Overslept, blasted nightmares again…” The carriage shifted and Bill Givenson sat down heavily in the seat next to Buffy. “Excuse me, miss….” He trailed off as his eyes met those of the blonde beside him, and for a long moment, the two stared at each other.

Giles cleared his throat. This wasn’t the setting he’d envisioned, but when had his plans ever worked as expected, when it came to Buffy? “Bill, I’d like you to meet Buffy Summers; Buffy, this is Bill Givenson.”

Habitual British etiquette came to Bill’s rescue. “Pleased to meet you,” he said, though the look on his face was anything but pleased. He turned to Giles. “All right, I suppose I’ve got to believe you now.” He put his head in his hands, rubbing his fingers through tangled curls. “God, I could use a cup of tea,” he muttered.

“Would coffee do?” He raised his head at Buffy’s quiet voice. “I’ve only had a sip, but you look like you could use it more than me.” The blueness of his eyes shocked her again; she had thought that particular shade forever lost to the world. He took the cup she offered.

“Bill, I also want to introduce Dawn Summers.” Giles motioned to the girl beside him, whose resentment had been washed away by curiosity. “I think I’ve told her that the two of you have, uh, er, a few things in common. Dawn is hoping to make Oxford one of those things.”

“You throw quite a party, Rupert Giles,” Bill remarked wryly. “Dawn, how’d you do?” He took a long swallow of coffee. The conductor, collecting tickets, was a welcome interruption. Buffy didn’t want to stare, but it was hard to take her eyes off the man beside her. Man, not vampire, she thought, noting the slight tan, the longer, darker hair, the neat gray pants and blue striped shirt…so different, and yet something in her knew him. There was vertigo, and a sense of utter familiarity, as if she had walked through a door in London to find herself in her old house on Revello Drive.

He glanced at her, and she felt suddenly embarrassed. “Sorry…I know we’ve just met, but it feels like you’re…” She didn’t want to mention Spike, somehow. Giles had explained that he was struggling to accept the strange truth of his identity, and she remembered how hard it had been for Dawn.

“Spike.” He said it for her. “Yeah, I do get it. Much as I hate to admit it. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re the girl of my bloody nightmares.” She looked down at her lap. She’d imagined seeing Spike again so many times over the past year, but he’d always been pleased to see her in those dreams. “Literally, I mean. I’ve been having this recurring nightmare for a while now. It’s dark, you’re there, you take my hand, and then all of a sudden I’m in flames. Terrifying, really. More so now that I know it actually happened.”

“Sorry,” she said, quietly. “Dreams can be…I get Slayer dreams, and they’re useful sometimes, but mostly they just drive me crazy trying to figure out whether they mean anything. I had one about you—I mean about Spike—the other night…” She stopped in confusion.

“It’s all right, Buffy,” said Bill. He felt a need to comfort her, to make this easier for her, and he wasn’t sure why, except that it was Buffy. “I still don’t understand it, but I’ve stopped fighting it. I can face facts. But you’ve got to realize, I don’t remember being Spike. I know what I’ve read about him. I know you and he were…” Now it was his turn to pause in embarrassment. The Watcher’s Council report had been discreetly phrased, but he had read between those lines quite clearly.

“Spike and I had a pretty dysfunctional relationship. He was evil, then I was dead, then I was pretty seriously depressed, then he was crazy. And we were fighting the First, and then he was…gone. We never had much of a chance. Maybe it’s better that you don’t remember. I was…kind of horrible to him.” He held out the coffee cup, and she took a sip. “Thanks.” She smiled at him, thinking, God, he’s still gorgeous. Different, but his eyes are still the most perfect shade of blue I’ve ever seen.

Her smile took him by surprise. She’s beautiful, he thought. I’ve never gone for those California types, but this girl is stunning.

“Not to change the subject, but how about a change of subject?” Buffy said brightly. “I know you’re an Oxford guy, and Dawn is dying to quiz you about the place. So, I hear they’ve gotten electricity since Giles was there?”


	22. Bird and Baby

Buffy was enchanted by Oxford. Dawn and Bill paired up, conversing in low tones, and she followed along with Giles, who told her the names of the elegant old buildings and bits of their histories, as well as a few anecdotes from his university days. She stared up at elaborate stonework and spiraling columns, wrought iron gateways, carved angels perched over heavy wooden doors. She tried to imagine going being a college student here. She felt like she was wandering from one storybook castle to another, except it was palpably real—people her age hurried past carrying books and chatting with friends, or zipped by on bicycles. Occasionally she glanced at the pair ahead of her, wondering if they were discussing the ancient university around them, or their shared experience of memories that hadn’t actually happened.

They eventually halted in front of a round building that Giles identified as the Radcliffe Camera; it reminded Buffy of some churches she’d seen in Rome, but Bill explained that it was a library. Giles had made plans for himself and Dawn to lunch with a friend of his, who worked there as an archivist. He looked uncertainly at Buffy and Bill.

“I initially told Nigel there would be the two of us. I left him a message that we’d be a party of three, but…”

Bill interrupted. “You two go on. I haven’t been to the Bird and Baby in ages; I’ll stand Buffy lunch.”

Dawn grinned, and Giles smiled with apparent relief. “Splendid idea,” he said. Have a pint for me. Shall we meet in say, two hours? How about the Old Quad at Brasenose?” Bill agreed, and Dawn gave Buffy an impulsive hug.

“All is forgiven, I guess,” Buffy said as her sister and her Watcher entered Radcliffe Camera. “So, did she put you up to this lunch invitation?”

“Not precisely,” Bill replied. “Come on—it’s a bit of a walk, but it’s a nice day. No, Dawn loves you, but she said something about needing to do this herself. And Giles looked like he thought a party of four might be awkward.”

Buffy sighed. “I guess I shouldn’t have come along today. But she’s the only family I’ve got.” Suddenly she found it hard to keep a quiver out of her voice. “All these buildings, they’ve been here for hundreds of years. I’m only 23, and there isn’t anything in my life that hasn’t disappeared without a trace. Maybe I am being clingy, but Dawn—she’s pretty much what’s left of home.” Bill took her hand, and she looked up at him in surprise.

“It wasn’t just because of Dawn, or Giles,” he said. “I don’t need an excuse to take a beautiful woman to lunch, do I?”

 

“Hello, Mrs. Deerfield? My name’s Willow Rosenberg, and I’m doing some research on memory loss. May I come in?” Willow had put on a dark blazer and pulled her hair back, hoping to look plausible as a researcher. As she crossed the threshold of the apartment, she dropped her notebook.

“Call me Sharon, here, let me help you with that. Now, where did you say you were from? The hospital?” Sharon sneezed. Willow had also dropped a handful of grayish powder, which, when combined with the words she muttered, would make her listener highly unlikely to wonder why she was there, or what right she had to ask questions.

“Thank you! I’m such a klutz. Um, yes, I’m a medical student, in psychology, and I’m collecting some information for my department head. I understand your husband Rudy recently suffered a sudden memory loss?”

“Well, yes. Would you care to sit down?”

Half an hour later, Willow closed the door gently behind her. She turned the corner of the hallway before jumping with glee. This had to be it. After six useless interviews with relatives, a genuine lead to follow up. She opened her notebook and glanced again at the crumpled flyer.

 _Are you troubled by traumatic memories? Is the past causing you pain in the present?_

 _Dr. Gheren can help._

 

Like Giles, Bill turned the walk into a guided tour of Oxford. Buffy noticed, however, that he never mentioned himself or his undergraduate days. She asked what college he had attended, but after his one-word answer (“Trinity”) he turned silent.

“I’m sorry,” he said a few minutes later. “This is the first time I’ve come back to Oxford since I took the Watcher’s Council job, and it’s very…disorienting to realize that it’s the first time I’ve actually been here. As far as I know, at least.”

“I get that,” Buffy said. “But, you know, this is a little weird for me too. I know you’re Bill, but there are all these other memories attached to you.” She paused. “I know what this reminds me of! Susie Gerdway!”

“Um, and she is…?” Well, at least I’ve distracted him, Buffy thought with an inward smile. She hastened to explain.

“Susie Gerdway went to high school with me, back in Sunnydale. She was a really sweet girl, but very heavy. Serious case of overweight. I didn’t know her all that well, but we had a few classes together, and she let me borrow her notes a couple of times. I used to fall asleep in class a lot, all those late nights fighting evil. Anyway. I ran into her in Rome about six months ago. I hadn’t seen her since graduation, I didn’t even know if she had survived. I should say, she ran into me, because I wouldn’t have recognized her. She’d lost a hundred and ten pounds. She looked great.”

Bill raised an eyebrow. “And the relevance of this…?”

“We went out for a drink, and it was like double vision. I kept looking at her, but seeing the old Susie, the one I remembered. My brain kept switching back and forth between my old idea of who she was, what she looked like, and the actual person in front of me. Being with you is giving me the same feeling. You look like Spike, you remind me of Spike, but you’re not the same person. It’s weird.”

“I suppose it would be,” Bill said. “Here we are, at any rate.” The ‘bird and baby,’ as it turned out, was an ancient pub called the Eagle & Child, and consisted of a series of small, low-ceilinged rooms. They found an alcove and seated themselves.

“Look.” Buffy said. “I’ve got an idea. Let’s start over. We’ve never met before, not as Buffy and Bill. I don’t know anything about who you are, and you don’t know me except for whatever the Council says about me, which is probably all wrong anyway. Why don’t we just forget about all this Spike and shunshee or whatever it is, and just get to know each other?”

Bill looked at her, and she felt a warmth in his gaze that she remembered. Not Spike, Bill, she told herself firmly. “Works for me,” he said. “So, does that make this our first date?”

“If you want it to be.” She was outwardly calm, but her inner cheerleader was turning cartwheels at the word ‘date.’ She wasn’t sure whether she was responding to Bill or Spike, but she found herself wanting to kiss him. Down, girl, she thought. FIRST date.

“So, how did you like going to Oxford? Are there lots of Americans? I’m a little worried about Dawn fitting in….”


	23. Find, Dismember, Barbecue, Party

Buffy and Willow were already there when Giles arrived in the conference room. He indulged in a moment of nostalgia for their countless research-and-strategy sessions in the old high school library, and later, around the battered table at the Magic Box. His Scoobies—silly American word, it suited them perfectly. Though not all of them were here, he mused, setting down his laptop: Xander was currently in South Africa, while Faith was doing a remarkable job contending with the Cleveland Hellmouth, decked out in the tweed jacket that Willow called his Watcher-Wear.

Giles’ eyes lingered on Willow, who rewarded him with a grin that warmed like sunlight. Dear, beautiful, brilliant, passionate Willow. He smiled back, remembering how she had awakened him that morning, her hands and lips and… No, he told himself sternly. No erotic fantasies in the conference room. Your colleague has called a meeting, you must not imagine her naked. Or in black lace, or… Realizing that his trousers weren’t loose enough to conceal the evidence of his wandering thoughts, Giles forced himself back into the present.

“Good morning, all,” he said. “ Buffy, I assume Dawn’s safely back in Rome?”   
assisted by Robin and some of the Sunnydale Potentials—no, they were Slayers, now. He spared a silent prayer for Anya and Tara, remembering the bright bluntness of one, the soft generosity of the other, both outsiders who had made a place for themselves among the Scoobies, and in his heart. He could almost picture them at the end of the table, where Buffy and Willow were giggling like teenagers. Bill and Andrew stood a little apart from the girls, Andrew cheerfully describing the workings of what he insisted on calling his cyber-leg. He was still pale and thin,   
“Saw her off at the airport last night,” Buffy said. “She desperately wants Oxford, but she’s willing to settle for King’s College, or possibly the London School of Economics.”

“With her gift for languages, I suspect she’ll be able to take her pick,” Giles said. “Before we begin, I’d liked to share an interesting email I received this morning. He opened his laptop, clicked on a window, and braced himself for the high-pitched squeals.

“Xander!” Buffy cried. The photo, sent from an internet café in Johannesburg, showed Xander and a young woman, his deep tan seeming pale beside her blue-black skin. Both were smiling broadly. “And… she’s a new Slayer! From Zimbabwe, he says.”

Giles pulled Andrew aside.“I’ve forwarded this to your Council mailbox, ” he told the younger man quietly. “This young woman will be arriving in London in a few weeks. I was hoping you could help with her orientation. That is, if you’re ready to come back.”

“Oh, I’m ready. In fact, I’m sort of already back, Willow asked me to help out with the research on Gheren.” Andrew gave him a confident smile, and Giles realized with a shock that he was looking at a man, not a boy. His children had all grown up. For a moment, he felt every minute of the gap between his age and theirs, but then Willow caught his eye and licked her lips suggestively. Not so old after all, he decided. They were just catching up with him.

“I’ll send round copies of Xander’s email and photo to anyone who wants them,” he said, “but I suppose we ought to get on with our meeting.”

Willow looked up. “Great.” She passed a stack of copies around as the others took their places at the table. Bill sat next to Buffy, his chair perhaps a bit closer than necessary. Giles watched the look they shared. It seemed clear that Buffy and Spike, in whatever form, would always be drawn to each other. He could only hope that an older Buffy and a post-Shanshu Spike would be able to form a healthy relationship.

“Andrew has been working with the Research group to see what we could find out about Dr. Gheren. They pulled up some very interesting material from the archives,” Willow began. “He’s a sorceror, and he’s been kicking around Europe for centuries. The last record we found places him was in London, in the mid-1950s, although he hasn’t used the name Gheren since the early eighteenth century. Apparently he derives his power, and his immortality, by stealing memories.”

“But not just any memories,” Andrew added. “Bad ones, especially violent ones. Murder and war and mayhem. There were a lot of veterans in London in the ‘50s who lost their memories, but the doctors and everybody thought it was a psychological reaction, a post-traumatic stress thing. Combat fatigue, they called it. Then it just stopped.” He looked through the stack of papers. “We found a similar in pattern postwar Germany in the 20’s, and Russia in the teens.”

“Our interviews with the families of some of his recent victims confirmed this,” Willow said. “Rudy Deerfield, for example. He served in Belfast with the British Army, and was discharged after he shot and killed a ten year old boy. There was also a woman, Sylvia Clark, who was just out of prison for beating her abusive boyfriend comatose with a brick. Another guy emigrated here from Rwanda a couple of months after the genocide there. We have evidence that all three visited Dr. Gheren, and suffered complete memory loss shortly afterward.”

Bill leaned back in his chair. “So maybe that’s what he was trying to do to Spike. If he feeds on atrocities, well…”

“William the Bloody would have made quite a meal,” Buffy finished. “And didn’t you say Drusilla warned y—warned Spike?”

Willow leafed through her papers. “Your dreams gave us some great information, which is outlined on page seven of the handouts. Firstly, the fact that you both had the same dream on the same night definitely points to a mystical origin. Secondly, it doesn’t matter to Gheren whether somebody’s human or undead, as long as their memories are violent. Since we don’t have a huge surplus of war veterans or torturers around London, he may be attracted to vampires.”

“Not just vampires.” Buffy looked at Giles. “Being a Slayer is a pretty violent occupation. We need to warn all the Slayers in the active rotation to look out for him, and to stay away from his hands at all costs.”

“That goes for you as well, Buffy. More than most, since you’ve been a slayer for so many years.” Giles turned to Willow. “Good analysis; please make sure that all Slayers on the active roster get a full briefing. ”

Andrew spoke up. “The other important data-point from the dream sequence is the hands. Drusilla seemed to be having a vision about Gheren, and she specifically warned Spike about his hands.”

“She saved him.” Bill spoke quietly. “Gheren had his hands on my temples—well, Spike’s, but that whole dream, or vision, whatever it was, I saw it from Spike’s point of view. I was going all foggy, and Drusilla jumped on Gheren’s back and distracted him, and then I cut off his hands.” He paused. “The whole idea of love, or affection between vampires…it’s bizarre to me, but Spike and Drusilla seemed to be taking care of one another.”

“Spike was a very unusual vampire, even before he was souled,” said Giles. “In any case, the fight ended when Gheren’s hands were cut off. That, and Drusilla’s warning, does suggest that his power is centered in his hands.”

“And he can either grow them back, or reattach them somehow, since he’s back and preying on London again,” observed Andrew. “Cutting them off is only the first step. It just weakens him, and we need to destroy him once and for all.”

Willow leafed through her papers. “What we found in the Council archives suggests beheading will do the trick, but given his power, I’d want to burn the corpse just to be sure. Cleansing flames. There are also some herbs we can burn with him that will dissipate any lingering mystical energy.”

“So, we find, I dismember, Willow barbecues, we party?” said Buffy. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

“Your gift for summary is alive and well,” Giles remarked dryly. “Starting with, we find. Willow, do you think he realizes that we’re aware of him? The easiest thing might be to corner him in his office, if he’s still luring victims there.”

“No such luck,” said Andrew. “I thought of that, so I called his office to check. The phone’s disconnected. I don’t know how he’d know that we know, though, so maybe it’s a coincidence. Anyway, we’re working on a locator spell—well, Willow is.”

Bill looked at Buffy. “You said ‘I dismember.’ How long are you planning to stay in London?”

“As long as it takes.” She ran her fingers through her hair, twisting it into a knot behind her head and letting it fall down her back again. “Dawn’s staying with a friend till I get back, and I don’t think her family will mind keeping her a while longer. They’ve practically adopted her. By Italian standards, no parents and one sister barely counts as a family. I can give her a call tonight.”

“I hate to say this, Buffy, but I think Gheren would find you a very attractive target, and you’re probably our best chance at defeating him. I do recognize you have retired from active slaying, but…” Giles paused.

She grinned at him. “Buffy-bait, at your service. I guess I’m back in the slaying game.”


	24. No Shrimp

“That went better than I expected.”

Trafalgar Square was lively on a Friday night, full of couples and tourists enjoying the clear, cool weather. Giles had his arm around Willow’s shoulder, while hers rested comfortably at his waist, under his jacket. A few paces ahead, Buffy and Bill were hand in hand, talking softly. It was good to hear Buffy laugh, Giles reflected.

“What, dinner?” said Willow. “Silly man, of course it did. They’re a good couple, and I knew you’d figure it out once you saw them together. I was right, admit it.” She leaned her head against his chest.

“You were right, Willow. I admit it,” he responded obediently. “A double date was in fact a brilliant idea, although I’m feeling rather enormous after all that food.” He kissed the top of her head, gleaming under the streetlight.

“Me too, but the walk should help,” she said. They both realized at the same moment that Buffy and Bill had stopped short, and shifted into defensive stances. “Shit.” Without further conversation they separated and took up positions behind the other couple, slightly behind and outside, forming a phalanx facing the tall, pale man with the mocking smile.

“How lovely to meet you,” Gheren said. His voice was deep, oddly accented, cynical and sinister. “I learned that you were seeking me, so I thought I would save you the trouble. You all have so much to offer me.” Willow could perceive a faint green glow, perhaps not yet visible to the others. She glanced nervously to the side; the evening was young, with a fair number of Londoners still on the streets, unaware of the impending violence.

“The only thing I’m offering you is a quick death, Gheren,” said Buffy. She shook her arm, and a slender blade slipped from its sheath into her hand. Bill did the same. Damn, thought Giles, I should have known better than to come out unarmed.

Gheren raised a hand in a casual gesture, and the streets around them went silent and dark, leaving the group in a circle of light from a streetlamp. “Let’s get all these bystanders out of our way, shall we? None of them are innocent by any means, but I hate having my meals interrupted.”

Buffy moved suddenly, sweeping her knife toward Gheren’s wrist. He slipped away, but her blade grazed the skin, leaving a line that growed vivid green before sealing closed. “You want a fight, do you? Pleased to oblige, but four against one seems a little unfair to me.”

A familiar laugh came from behind them. There was a long moment of hesitation like an indrawn breath, none of the four wanting to turn their backs on Gheren while facing the new threat. Buffy glanced to the side,where Bill stood beside her—but that sounded like him, behind her…? Willow was the first to turn her head.

“It’s us,” she murmured.

There was no more time to think, only to respond with fists and blade to the attack. Giles doubled over, gut-punched by his duplicate, cocky and young in heavy boots and a leather jacket. “Ripper,” he muttered, taking advantage of his stance to aim a fist at his counterpart’s most vulnerable area. As they grappled, he could hear Buffy, no, the other-Buffy, fighting with words as well as fists.

“You’re supposed to be dead, you know. Wasn’t it better that way? Peace and quiet. Being back in this world is totally not worth it. The only thing you can feel is pain. Just give it up and let go. I’ll can make it stop hurting again.” The real Buffy was finding it a challenge to fight herself; both she and her opponent could predict each other’s moves, neither could use the element of surprise. She grinned at the false Buffy, in the lank hair and drab clothes of her post-resurrection self.

“Don’t even bother, chickie. I decided a long time ago that I was going to live, and I’ve already killed you once. I shop, I sneeze, and I’m going to punch you into the next dimension. No shrimp for you!” Quipping always helped her keep her energy up during a fight, but she was worried—it was now five to one, and Gheren’s distraction was all too effectively keeping them from dealing with the primary threat. Even worse, she was tiring fast—why?—while the other Buffy showed no sign of fatigue.

Bill and Spike were circling each other, lashing out with steel. In the heavy eyeliner and leather duster of his punk days, Spike was laughing, bouncing on the balls of his feet, waving a huge knife. “Martial arts!” he scoffed. “Let’s have a little real violence then, you know that’s what you want! Blood in the gutters, blood in your teeth, it’s always blood. You’re not the proper gent you pretend to be, Billy boy.” Bill set his teeth and focused on the his punches and kicks, not daring to waste his rapidly dwindling energy on words.

Willow was terrified.

Black hair, black eyes and crackling sparks of power faced her, power that fascinated and repulsed her all at once, power she craved and dreamed about at night only to awaken trembling. A veined hand rose and from it flew a ball of blue light, which she managed to stop barely in time. “Sooner or later,” said the dark Willow, “you will come home. You are nothing without this power. Don’t hold yourself back.” Willow managed to fling a counterspell that knocked the dark witch off her feet, but she arose with a contemptuous smile. That took more out of me than it should have, thought Willow. She’s as strong as I am, and there’s nothing she won’t do. We are in so much trouble.

Giles’ younger self had given himself up fully to the fight, and the Watcher, even as they traded punches and jabs, recognized the strange wild joy of being consumed in the immediate struggle to survive and win. But his years of practice gave him a slight edge, the ability to recognize where a blow was coming from and block it a split second before it landed, and more important, the ability to think and fight at the same time. He fought defensively, desperately trying to figure out a strategy. How can we defeat ourselves, that’s the question, he thought.

Then he laughed.

We can’t.

The force of the realization coincided with a spectacularly successful punch in the nose that knocked Ripper to the ground. Instead of taking advantage with a few swift kicks, Giles reached down and helped a slightly dazed Ripper to his feet. “I can’t beat you,” he told the other man, gripping both of arms. “I am you. You’re me, you’re part of me, I’ll never be rid of you, and I don’t want to, you gave me myself. Thank you, Ripper.”

“Sentimental old tosser,” Ripper said with a grin as he faded into the night.

Giles turned to the others, still trading blows. “Stop fighting yourselves!” he shouted. “They are not our enemies! They are us!” He jumped between the two Buffys trying to hold them apart. “Forgive yourself for dying, Buffy, for wanting to die or wanting to live, she’s only your past, she’s only yourself.” The other Buffy lifted him off his feet, wrenching his shoulder, but through a haze of pain he saw his Buffy smile.

“You’re right.” She changed tactics, moved in close, and grasped her counterpart in a tight embrace. “It’s all right. We can live, we can be happy! I promise you, there’s so much for us, Rome, cute shoes, everything. We can save the world and be loved, we don’t have to choose, I promise you. I promise me.” The other Buffy let out a sob and slowly faded, leaving her arms empty.

Bill had seen Ripper and Giles end their fight from the corner of his eye, but the distraction was enough to give Spike an advantage. Now Bill lay on the ground clutching his bleeding right arm, his blade a few crucial inches out of reach. Spike had a boot on his belly. Despite the pain, Bill let out a short ironic laugh. “I give up! I’m you, I admit it! William the Bloody, the Big Bad, that’s who I was. But you’re me now. You gave up evil for love, and you got this mortal body, this new life, Spike. We saved the world for love, Spike! Both of us! There’s no bloody difference!”

“Ain’t that a kick in the ass, mate!” Spike was laughing as he faded, his coat disappearing last, like the Cheshire cat’s smile.

The three turned toward the two Willows, who were separated by a field of vibrating greenish-yellow light. Instinctively Buffy felt that light was deadly, there was no safe way to physically intervene. Cautiously, Giles moved to the side of his Willow. He could see the strain in her face, the terrible determination it was taking to hold the other woman’s power in check. He spoke quietly but urgently.

“Willow, beloved, remember when you first came to England? You were afraid you could never be loved again, never be human, that your power had taken you outside the bounds of humanity. And you learned it wasn’t true. I love you, Willow, every part of you, your dark and your brightness and your amazing power.” He turned to the dark Willow, who glared at him, and suddenly he felt himself sagging, collapsing, all strength draining suddenly from his body, and Buffy’s strong arms catching him before he hit the ground. “I am not afraid of you, Willow, don’t be afraid of yourself.”

A sudden burst of light and heat engulfed the two Willows, and then faded, leaving Willow herself incandescent with white light, smiling. “I can do this,” she said, and turned toward Gheren. He was leaning against a brick wall, panting as if from great exertion. Willow raised her hand. “Bind,” she said, and a wall of white light surrounded and held him still.

Giles sat up. “Hands and head,” he said weakly. Buffy and Bill nodded, and their blades flashed in unison. Gheren’s head rolled to land at the Watcher’s feet, his hands following. The white light flowed down along the body and its severed parts, flickering along the surface and resolving into vivid flames, which leaped up and suddenly went out, leaving four piles of ash, one slightly larger than the other, and a sharp, acrid smell.

“Pretty cool, Will,” remarked Buffy.

 

This time all five of them went to the airport, in a huge old-fashioned London taxicab. Buffy’s luggage (plus a bag borrowed from Willow, to accommodate her London purchases), had disappeared behind the AlItalia counter, and they lingered near the security checkpoint to say their goodbyes.

Andrew smiled indulgently at Buffy and Bill. “Did anyone bring a crowbar? Because I think we’re going to need one to pry those two apart.” Buffy raised a mock-fist and Andrew pretended to cower, both grinning. “Seriously, you guys are so cute.”

“Thanks. As the former Big Bad, I find that highly insulting,” said Bill. “But since I know you’re insanely jealous, I’ll forgo the severe beating you deserve.”

Buffy peeled herself off Bill and turned to embrace Willow. “I’m going to miss you so much,” she murmured into her friend’s shoulder.

“Me too. But it’s only for a couple of months. We’ll be there for Dawn’s graduation, and then it’s arrivaderci, Rome, and hello London!” Willow said.

“I know I ‘ve said this before, but I am so pleased you’ve decided to come back,” said Giles. “The Council will certainly benefit from your input, as will the new Slayers. And don’t worry--if an apocalypse threatens, I’ll have you on the next plane back.”

“You’d better!” she laughed. “Andrew’s going to do the legwork—um, oops, bad word choice! I mean, Andrew said he’d check out apartments for me.”

“Flight 833 to Rome, Italy, now boarding at Gate 17,” a tinny voice intoned.

“That’s me,” Buffy sighed. She and Bill embraced again, their kiss gentle but infused with passion. “I don’t want to leave you…” she whispered.

Bill interrupted. “I’ll be here. This is just temporary, pet. We’re all done leaving each other, remember? This time we’ll get it right.”

Eventually she turned from him, eyes only slightly damp, and wrapped her arms around Andrew, who emitted a startled squeak when she picked him up off the ground. “Keep an eye on Obi-Wan for me, okay?” He nodded.

Finally, Buffy flung her arms around Giles. “Thank you so much. If you hadn’t figured it out, I’d have killed myself, which would have been my most ironic death yet.”

Giles returned a tight hug, utterly lacking in any British reserve at all. “You’re the only person strong enough to defeat you, Buffy. I suppose that’s true of all of us.”

She stepped back and smiled at him. “So by that logic, we’re unbeatable, right?”

 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Remember, comments make the muse happy!


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